BR  121  .H9 

Hyde,  William  De  Witt,  1858- 

1917. 
Outlines  of  social  theology 


OUTLINES   OF   SOCIAL   THEOLOGY 


j&m 


OUTLINES 


OF 


SOCIAL    THEOLOGY 


BY 


WILLIAM    DeWITT    HYDE,  D.D. 

PRESIDENT  OF  BOWDOIN  COLLEGE 


Ncfo  gork 
MACMILLAN    AND    CO. 

AND    LONDON 

1895 
All  rights  reserved 


Copyright,  1895, 
By   MACMILLAN   AND   CO. 

Set  up  and  electrotyped  April,   1895.      Reprinted 
September,  1895. 


Nortooot)  }9rras 

J.  S.  Cushing  &  Co.      Berwick  &  Smith 
Norwood  Mass.  U.S.A. 


PREFACE 

Idealism  and  theology,  originally  joined  to- 
gether in  "the  Gospel  according  to  St.  John," 
were  put  asunder  through  the  estrangement  of 
the  Greek  and  Latin  churches.  The  Greek  church 
put  a  metaphysic  in  the  place  of  religion,  and  paid 
the  penalty  in  spiritual  sterility.  The  Latin  church 
put  authority  in  the  place  of  reason,  and  paid  the 
penalty  in  intellectual  barrenness.  Protestantism 
has  inherited  the  Greek  formulas  without  the  phi- 
losophy which  gave  them  meaning,  and  the  Latin 
distrust  of  reason  without  the  authority  which 
made  dogmatism  effective.  The  remedy  lies  in  a 
reunion   of  vital  religion    with    rational    theology. 

The  time  has  not  come  for  writing  this  new  the- 
ology. The  returns  from  psychology  and  soci- 
ology, on  which  it  will  depend,  are  not  yet  in. 
A  man  however  may  blaze  a  path,  even  though 
he  lacks  the  materials  and  the  capacity  to  build  a 
road.  This  little  book  aims  to  point  out  the  log- 
ical relations  in  which  the  doctrines  of  theology 
will  stand  to  each  other  when  the  time  shall  come 


vi  PREFACE 

again  for  seeing  Christian  truth  in  the  light  of  reason 
and  Christian  life  as  the  embodiment  of  love. 

I  have  called  it  Social  Theology,  because  the 
Christianity  of  Christ  and  his  disciples  was  pre- 
eminently a  social  movement,  and  because  we 
are  looking  at  everything  to-day  from  the  social 
rather  than  the  individualistic  point  of  view.  In 
ethics,  in  economics,  in  sociology,  in  politics,  we 
no  longer  treat  man  as  capable  of  isolation.  Unus 
honiOy  nidlus  homo.  Man  is  what  he  is  by  virtue 
of  his  relations  to  that  which  he  is  not.  In  these 
special  sciences  we  try  to  solve  the  problem  of 
the  individual  by  putting  him  into  right  relations 
with  the  forces  and  persons  about  him.  Christ 
came  to  place  man  in  right  relations  with  God, 
with  nature,  and  with  his  fellow-men.  The  modern 
man  translates  the  Greek  ^rvxn  by  life  rather  than 
soul.  The  preservation  and  enrichment  of  life,  not 
the  mere  insuring  and  saving  of  the  soul,  is  the 
function  of  religion  which  appeals  to  men  to-day. 
And  at  this  period  of  transition  the  adjective 
"  social "  serves  to  call  attention  to  the  shifting  of 
emphasis  from  the  abstract  and  formal  relation  of 
the  isolated  individual  to  an  external  Ruler,  over 
to  man's  concrete  and  essential  relations  to  the 
Divine  Life  manifested  in  nature,  history,  and 
human  society. 


PREFACE  vii 

A  few  paragraphs  of  this  book,  amounting  to 
twenty  or  thirty  pages,  have  appeared  in  pub- 
lished sermons  and  addresses,  and  in  articles  in 
the  Andover  Review,  the  Outlook,  the  Century, 
and  the  Forum.  The  greater  part,  the  relation 
of  parts  to  each  other,  and  the  interpretation  of 
each  part  in  the  light  of  the  whole,  is  entirely 
new. 

For  valuable  suggestions  and  criticisms  upon 
the  proofs,  my  thanks  are  due  to  Professor  Egbert 

C.  Smyth,  of  Andover  Seminary  ;  Professor  George 
H.  Palmer,  of  Harvard  University ;  and  Professor 

D.  Collin  Wells,  of  Dartmouth  College. 

With  the  exception  of  the  first  and  last  chap- 
ters I  have  avoided  the  technical  philosophical 
discussion  which  theology  always  invites.  In 
dealing  with  the  grounds  of  belief  in  God,  in 
the  first  chapter,  I  have  found  it  impossible  to 
treat  the  subject  at  all  without  assuming  some 
familiarity  with  the  results  of  metaphysical  in- 
quiry. And  yet  the  presentation  there  made  is 
the  merest  summary  of  the  idealistic  position.  In 
the  last  chapter  also  I  have  introduced  a  summary 
of  the  idealistic  objections  to  asceticism,  hedonism, 
socialism,  and  promiscuous  charity.  The  general 
reader  is  advised  to  skip  both  these  chapters. 
Yet  it  was  impossible  to  omit  them  from  the  book 


viii  PREFACE 


without  leaving  it  logically  very  incomplete.  For 
after  all  metaphysics  must  be  the  Alpha,  and 
ethics  the  Omega,  of  any  theology  which  is 
rooted  in  reason  and  fruitful  in  life. 


WILLIAM    DeWITT    HYDE. 


Bowdoin  College,  Brunswick,  Me. 
January  21,  1895. 


CONTENTS. 

Part  I.     Theological. 

PAGE 

1.  The  World  and  the  Self  —  The  Father     ....        3 

2.  The  Real  and  the  Ideal — The  Son 39 

3.  The     Natural     and    the    Spiritual  —  The     Holy 

Spirit 71 

Part  II.     Anthropological. 

4.  Sin  and  Law  —  Judgment 89 

5.  Repentance  and  Faith  —  Salvation 112 

6.  Regeneration  and  Growth  —  Life 149 

Part  III.     Sociological. 

7.  Possession  and  Confession  —  The  Church    ....     175 

8.  Enjoyment  and   Service  —  The  Redemption  of  the 

World 215 

9.  Abstraction   and   Aggregation  —  The  Organization 

of  the  Kingdom 233 


Part  I 
THEOLOGICAL 


SOCIAL   THEOLOGY 

CHAPTER    I 

THE  WORLD  AND  THE  SELF THE  FATHER 

There  are  three  stages  in  the  spiritual  develop- 
ment of  man.  The  first  stage  is  world-conscious- 
ness; in  which  he  is  engrossed  by  the  stream  of 
sensations  which  come  pouring  in  from  the  great 
world  without.  The  second  stage  is  self-conscious- 
ness; in  which  he  goes  forth  with  eager  ambition 
to  subject  this  outward  world  of  men  and  things 
to  the  forms  of  his  understanding  and  the  service 
of  his  will.  The  third  stage  is  God-consciousness ; 
in  which,  unsatisfied  with  self  and  the  world,  he 
devotes  the  matured  powers  of  reflection  and  self- 
determination  to  the  unselfish  service  of  objective 
and  universal  ends.  The  first  stage  is  the  state 
of  nature.  The  second  is  the  plane  of  science, 
art,  business,  politics,  and  culture.  The  third  is 
the  sphere  of  religion. 

These  stages  are  not  mutually  exclusive.  They 
3 


4 


SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 


are  rather  distinguishable  aspects,  different  de- 
grees of  maturity,  of  the  one  indivisible  life  of 
man.  The  higher  include  the  lower.  The  later 
take  up  into  themselves  the  significance  of  all 
that  has  gone  before.  Science  and  art  fare  ill  if 
they  ignore  the  solid  ground  of  sensuous  fact. 
Religion  degenerates  into  an  empty  form,  a  use- 
less and  mischievous  superstition,  if  it  fails  to 
make  close  connection  with  the  science  and  art 
and   business   and   culture   of  the  age. 

The  first  of  these  stages  need  not  detain  us 
long.  Psychology  tells  us  there  is  no  pure  sen- 
sation in  adult  life.  Sensations  are  mere  signs 
which  we  at  once  work  up  into  perceptions.  Sen- 
sations are  only  the  raw  material  of  the  world  our 
thought  constructs.  The  world  pure  and  simple, 
apart  from  the  unity  and  coherence  which  it  re- 
ceives from  the  mind  which  thinks  it,  is  no  world 
at  all.  It  is  a  chaos,  not  a  cosmos.  It  is,  as  Pro- 
fessor James  says  of  the  object  of  the  baby's 
consciousness,  "one  big,  blooming,  buzzing  Con- 
fusion." 

The  notion  that  there  is  a  world  unrelated  to  our 
intelligence,  which  yet  makes  impressions  on  the 
blank  white  paper  of  a  passive  intellect  and  drops 
ready-made  ideas  into  the  previously  empty  cabi- 
net of  a  merely  receptive  mind,  is  a  relic  of  phil- 


THEOLOGICAL  5 

osophical  superstition  which  Kant's  Critique  of 
Pure  Reason  has  demolished  ;  and  the  last  vesti- 
ges of  which  modern  psychology  has  swept  away. 
The  world  we  know  and  talk  about,  the  only  world 
we  can  conceive  and  think,  is  a  world  which  the 
mind  creates  for  itself  out  of  the  materials  which 
sensation  brings.  One  might  as  well  say  that  the 
cloth  which  comes  out  of  a  factory  is  the  exclu- 
sive product  of  the  bales  of  cotton  that  are 
dumped  into  the  picker-room,  as  to  claim  that 
the  world  as  we  know  it  is  the  exclusive  pro- 
duct of  sensation.  What  the  card  and  the  jenny 
and  the  loom  do  to  the  raw  cotton,  that  the 
forms  and  categories  of  the  understanding  do  to 
the  raw  material  of  sensation.  As  the  cloth  is 
the  joint  product  of  the  material  and  the  machin- 
ery, so  knowledge  is  the  joint  product  of  sensation 
and  the  mind  which  reacts  on  it  and  works  it  over. 
The  world  of  mere  sensation,  therefore,  is  not  the 
ultimate  reality. 

No  less  disastrous  than  the  effort  of  the  mind 
to  treat  the  world  as  ultimate  reality  is  the 
practical  attempt  to  make  it  the  object  of  our 
devotion.  At  some  time  or  other,  we  all  try 
the  experiment.  We  go  out  into  the  world  ex- 
pecting to  find  there,  ready-made  and  fitted  to 
our  forms,  the  happiness  we  crave.     But,  like  the 


6  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

prodigal,  we  soon  discover  that  perpetual  feasting 
ends  in  feeding  swine.  The  world  was  not  made 
to  order  to  gratify  our  wants  Of  itself,  it  will  not 
even  supply  our  physical  necessities.  Nor  do  our 
fellowmen  stand  waiting  to  receive  and  execute 
our  orders.  "  And  he  began  to  be  in  want ;  and 
no  man  gave  unto  him,"  is  the  pitiful  plight  in 
which  Nature  leaves  those  who  cast  themselves 
blindly  upon  her  bounty.  We  cannot  be  satisfied 
with  the  husks,  which  give  such  perfect  satisfac- 
tion to  the  swine.  The  reason  is  that  we  are  more 
than  they.  It  was  "when  he  came  to  himself," 
that  the  prodigal  determined  to  return  from  the 
far  country.  As  Carlyle  has  explained  it,  "  Man's 
unhappiness,  as  I  construe,  comes  of  his  great- 
ness;  it  is  because  there  is  an  infinite  in  him, 
which,  with  all  his  cunning,  he  cannot  quite  bury 
under  the  finite.  Will  the  whole  finance  ministers 
and  upholsterers  and  confectioners  of  modern  Eu- 
rope undertake  in  joint-stock  company  to  make 
one  shoeblack  happy  ?  They  cannot  accomplish  it 
above  an  hour  or  two  ;  for  the  shoeblack  also  has 
a  soul  quite  other  than  his  stomach  ;  and  would 
require,  if  you  consider  it,  for  his  permanent  satis- 
faction and  saturation,  simply  this  allotment,  no 
more,  no  less  ;  God's  infinite  universe  altogether  to 
himself,  therein  to  enjoy  infinitely,  and  fill  every 


THEOLOGICAL  y 

wish  as  fast  as  it  rose.  Always  there  is  a  black 
spot  in  our  sunshine  ;  it  is  even,  as  I  said,  the 
shadow  of  ourselves."  Carlyle's  shoeblack  and 
Jesus's  prodigal  are  brought  up  at  the  same  point ; 
the  unsatisfied,  infinite  self. 

This  incapacity  of  the  finite  and  fleeting  world 
without  to  satisfy  the  spirit  within,  is  the  half- 
truth  of  pessimism  and  the  secret  of  its  charm. 

"We  demand 
Of  all  the  thousand  nothings  of  the  hour 
Their  stupefying  power ; 
Ah,  yes ;  and  they  benumb  us  at  our  call  ! 
Yet  still  from  time  to  time,  vague  and  forlorn, 
From  the  soul's  subterranean  depth  upborne 
As  from  an  infinitely  distant  land, 
Come  airs  and  floating  echoes,  and  convey 
A  melancholy  into  all  our  day.11 

The  quest  of  pleasure  in  outward  things  defeats 
itself.  Cyrenaicism  teaches  suicide.  If  man's 
ultimate  relation  is  to  blind  and  unconscious  na- 
ture, then  Schopenhauer  is  right  when  he  exclaims : 
"  Desires  are  limitless,  claims  inexhaustible,  and 
every  satisfied  desire  gives  rise  to  a  new  one.  No 
possible  satisfaction  in  the  world  could  suffice  to 
still  its  longings,  set  a  goal  to  its  infinite  cravings, 
and  fill  the  bottomless  abyss  of  the  heart.  Happi- 
ness always  lies  in  the  future,  or  else  in  the  past, 


8  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

and  the  present  may  be  compared  to  a  small  dark 
cloud  which  the  wind  drives  over  the  sunny  plain  ; 
before  and  behind  it  all  is  bright,  only  it  itself 
always  casts  a  shadow.  The  present  is  therefore 
always  insufficient ;  but  the  future  is  uncertain,  and 
the  past  irrevocable.  Nothing  at  all  is  worth  our 
striving,  our  efforts  and  struggles,  all  good  things 
are  vanity,  the  world  is  bankrupt  at  all  ends,  and 
life  is  a  business  which  does  not  pay  expenses." 

Neither  intellectually  nor  practically  can  we  rest 
in  mere  world-consciousness,  and  accept  the  world 
as  the  ultimate  reality.  We  must  turn  next  to 
ourselves.     Intra  te  qncere  deuin. 

The  world  within  the  mind  of  man,  the  world  as 
thought  makes  it,  the  world  of  human  science  and 
art  and  history  and  politics,  is  throughout  an  ordered 
world.  All  things  are  firmly  bound  together  by 
indissoluble  laws  ;  so  that  a  change  at  one  point 
involves  a  compensating  change  in  everything 
even  remotely  connected  with  it.  Every  act  that 
takes  place  here  implies  corresponding  reaction 
everywhere.  What  I  do  now  is  at  once  the 
product  of  all  my  past,  and  a  determining  ele- 
ment, however  slight,  in  all  my  future.  This 
oak  tree  now  before  me,  owes  its  size  and  shape 
to  thousands  of  oaks  and  acorns  that  have  gone 
before  ;    to    the    soil  that    feeds  its  roots ;    to  the 


THEOLOGICAL  9 

upheaval,  denudation,  vegetation,  and  decay,  which 
formed  that  soil ;  to  sunshine  and  storm  ;  to 
measureless  cycles  of  clashing  meteors  and  dif- 
fused fire  mist  and  glowing  earth  and  cooling 
crust  out  of  which  sunshine  and  storm  were  born. 
This  man  upon  the  street  derives  his  present 
being  from  countless  generations  of  men  and 
women  who  bridged  for  him  the  gulf  between 
the  savage  and  the  civilized  estate  ;  to  number- 
less animal  forms  which  in  the  struggle  for  exist- 
ence won  the  right  of  his  superior  structure  to 
survive ;  to  liberties  secured  on  ancient  battle- 
fields and  institutions  inherited  from  unremem- 
bered  days  ;  to  parents,  friends,  teachers,  books, 
influences,  ideals,  inextricably  blended  in  the 
seamless  robe  which  we  all  wear  and  call  envi- 
ronment. 

This  world  of  our  thought  is  one.  All  things 
in  it  stand  to  each  other  in  reciprocal  rela- 
tions. Each  thing  must  take  its  definite  place 
by  the  side  of  other  things  in  space;  each  event 
must  take  its  precise  position  before  and  after 
other  events  in  time;  each  quality  must  be  bound 
up  with  and  dependent  upon  other  qualities  under 
the  conception  of  substance  which  we  put  upon 
groups  of  qualities  in  order  to  hold  them  together 
in  our  minds;  each  change  must  be  the  correlate 


IO  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

of  other  changes  according  to  the  law  of  cause 
and  effect,  whereby  we  maintain  for  our  thought 
the  identity  of  the  world  in  the  midst  of  its  un- 
ceasing transformation. 

Thus  the  world  of  our  own  thought,  which  in 
fact  is  the  only  world  we  know  and  can  talk 
about,  proves  to  be  a  world  built  up  by  the 
activity  of  our  own  minds,  which  reduce  the 
uncoordinated  data  of  sensation  to  unity  and  or- 
der by  imposing  upon  them  forms  of  perception 
and  laws  of  relation  which  are  inherent,  not  as 
formulated  propositions,  but  as  modes  of  opera- 
tion, in  the  rational  nature  of  the  mind  itself. 
That  the  world  of  our  thought  is  one ;  that  it 
is  an  ordered  world  ;  that  it  is  a  coherent  system 
of  rational  and  reciprocal  relations ;  and  that  this 
unity  and  rationality  of  the  world  we  think  is 
due,  not  to  the  raw  material  of  sensation  dumped 
into  a  passive  and  receptive  mind,  but  to  the 
reaction  of  an  active  intelligence  which  con- 
tributes out  of  its  own  nature  the  forms  and 
categories  by  which  it  reduces  the  manifold  of 
sensation  to  the  unity  of  reason, — this,  in  brief- 
est possible  form,  is  the  positive  outcome  of  the 
Critique    of    Kant. 

The  order  and  rationality  we  find  in  nature, 
then,   is  not   material,    but  mental  :    it  is  not   im- 


THEOLOGICAL  I  i 

printed  on  our  senses  from  without,  but  is  imposed 
upon  sensation  from  within.  And,  we  must  rec- 
ognize, even  at  this  preliminary  stage  in  the  dis- 
cussion, that,  as  Herbert  Spencer  has  said,  "This 
necessity  we  are  under  to  think  of  the  external 
energy  in  terms  of  the  internal  energy,  gives 
rather  a  spiritualistic  than  a  materialistic  aspect 
to  the  Universe. "  The  world  is  the  great  mirror 
in  which  our  reason  sees  itself  reflected.  Of  so 
much  Kant  makes  us  sure.  Is  that  all?  Can 
we  stop  here?  Is  the  intelligence  by  which 
we  interpret  the  world  simply  our  intelligence  ? 
Can  we  rest  satisfied  in  a  merely  subjective 
idealism  ? 

The  raw  material,  the  sensations  themselves, 
we  certainly  did  not  create.  Kant  had  to  admit 
an  external  source  from  which  these  sensations 
come.  He,  however,  placed  this  source  of  sen- 
sation in  "things  in  themselves,"  out  of  all  pos- 
sible relation  to  the  mind  of  man,  which  can 
merely  receive  sensations,  but  is  unable  to  go 
behind  the  immediate  returns  sensations  give. 
Kant  thus  prepared  the  way  for  the  agnosticism 
of  Herbert  Spencer.  And  when  Mr.  Spencer 
tells  us  that  "  amid  the  mysteries  which  become 
the  more  mysterious  the  more  they  are  thought 
about,  there  will  remain  the  one  absolute  certainty, 


12  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

that  man  is  ever  in  presence  of  an  Infinite  and 
Eternal  Energy,  from  which  all  things  proceed  "  ; 
and  then  adds  that,  "  The  power  manifested 
throughout  the  Universe  distinguished  as  mate- 
rial, is  the  same  power  which  in  ourselves  wells 
up  under  the  form  of  consciousness  "  ;  and  then, 
having  gone  so  far,  stops  short  with  the  decla- 
ration that  we  can  know  absolutely  nothing  of 
this  Power  of  whose  existence  we  are  sure,  he  is 
simply  translating  Kant's  inaccessible  source  of 
phenomena  into  his  own  Unknowable  Background 
of  the  universe. 

Kant  and  Spencer  leave  us  with  a  world  which 
is  essentially  mental  ;  a  world  which  our  own 
minds  alone  cannot  explain  ;  and  the  certainty  that 
there  is  something  beyond  which  does  explain  this 
world  with  its  "  spiritualistic  rather  than  material- 
istic aspect." 

If  the  source  of  phenomena  merely  gave  us  sen- 
sations and  nothing  more  ;  if  one  mind  could  inter- 
pret these  sensations  in  oneway,  and  another  could 
interpret  them  in  another ;  if  there  were  no  reason 
in  the  world  except  that  which  the  individual  minds 
of  men  impose  upon  it  ;  if  there  were  no  such  thing 
as  verification  of  the  opinion  of  man  by  the  objec- 
tive witness  of  nature  ;  if  there  were  no  objective 
standard  to  which  all  finite  minds  are  compelled  to 


THEOLOGICAL  1 3 

conform  ;  if  there  were  no  valid  and  immutable 
distinction  between  truth  and  falsehood,  between 
science  and  fancy,  between  proved  theory  and 
probable  hypothesis,  —  then  indeed  the  position  in 
which  Kant  and  Spencer  leave  us  would  be  final 
and  ultimate. 

These  very  things,  however,  it  is  the  peculiar 
achievement  of  modern  science  to  have  established. 
We  can  verify  our  subjective  notions  by  appealing 
to  the  test  of  objective  experiment.  We  make 
predictions  ;  and  nature  fulfils  our  expectations  to 
the  minute.  We  recognize  an  established  body  of 
scientific  truth  which  we  have  discovered,  not  cre- 
ated ;  and  which  no  man  may  deny  without  thereby 
banishing  himself  from  the  society  of  the  intelli- 
gent. We  accept  a  standard  of  objective  truth  ;  we 
acknowledge  that  there  is  one  system  of  thought- 
relations,  common  to  all  thinking  minds  ;  and  we 
judge  a  given  proposition  to  be  true  or  false  accord- 
ing as  it  falls  within  or  falls  without  this  one  sys- 
tem of  rational  relations. 

In  the  crises  of  development,  when  new  truths 
are  declared  and  new  standards  of  duty  are  pro- 
claimed, this  divine  background  of  truth  comes 
to  the  front.  When  Copernicus  declares  in  oppo- 
sition to  the  unanimous  opinion  of  mankind  that 
the  earth  moves  around  the  sun,  what  gives  him 


14  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

confidence  in  the  truth  of  his  assertion  ?  If  it 
is  merely  his  opinion,  it  cannot  maintain  itself 
against  the  opinion  of  mankind.  If  the  opinions 
of  finite  minds  are  the  ultimate  source  of  truth, 
then  neither  the  opinion  of  Copernicus  nor  that 
of  his  opponents  is  certainly  true.  Both  are 
merely  probable.  And  of  the  two  theirs  is  more 
probable  than  his.  The  ground  of  the  astrono- 
mer's confidence  is  that  there  is  a  rational  rela- 
tion of  things,  as  infinite  reason,  in  which  the 
revolution  of  the  earth  around  the  sun  always 
was,  is  now,  and  always  will  be,  an  inseparable 
and  undeniable  element.  Into  that  thought 
Copernicus  has  entered.  He  is  prepared  to  show 
that  with  his  doctrine  of  the  revolution  of  the 
earth,  all  other  astronomical  facts  fall  into  har- 
mony ;  without  this  doctrine,  all  other  facts 
remain  in  confusion  and  contradiction.  As  Coper- 
nicus said  :  "  By  a  close  and  long  observation 
I  have  at  length  found  that,  if  the  motions  of 
the  rest  of  the  planets  be  compared  with  the 
circulation  of  the  earth,  and  be  computed  for  the 
revolution  of  each,  not  only  their  phenomena  will 
follow,  but  it  will  so  connect  the  orders  and  mag- 
nitudes of  the  planets  and  all  the  orbs,  and  even 
heaven  itself,  that  nothing  in  any  part  of  it 
could    be    transposed    without    the    confusion    of 


THEOLOGICAL  1 5 

the  rest  of  the  parts,  and  of  the  whole  uni- 
verse." This  thought,  which  is  common  to  him 
and  to  his  opponents ;  this  thought,  which  is 
common  both  to  the  minds  of  all  thinking  men 
and  to  the  forms  of  the  external  order ;  this 
rational  and  universal  relation  of  things,  which 
is  the  basis  of  the  ultimate  agreement  of  all  can- 
did minds  with  each  other,  and  the  guarantee 
that  their  united  judgment  is  in  agreement  with 
the  facts,  —  this  is  the  only  rational  ground  of 
the  confidence  which  the  scientific  discoverer 
has  in  the  new  truth  which  he  declares.  If 
there  were  two  natural  orders,  he  might  be 
talking  of  one,  and  his  opponents  of  the  other. 
If  there  were  no  objective  rational  order,  both 
he  and  they  might  be  amusing  themselves  with 
fancies  equally  true  because  equally  subjective ; 
but  equally  false  because  nothing  could  be  found 
to  which  either  could  be  proved  to  correspond. 

The  facts  which  we  have  been  considering 
demand  some  explanation.  The  fixed  relations  in 
which  all  objects  of  our  thought  stand  to  each 
other  are  not  of  our  own  making.  This  coherence 
of  all  the  forces  in  the  world,  in  such  a  way 
that  we  cannot  think  of  a  change  in  one  element 
or  member  without  thinking  corresponding  and 
compensating  changes  in  the  whole,  is  no  device 


1 6  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

of  the  subjective  mind  of  the  individual  beholder. 
This  unity  of  all  the  forces  and  facts  of  the 
world  in  an  organic  whole  of  reason  we  dis- 
cover, but  do  not  create.  The  universality  of 
law,  the  verification  of  hypothesis,  the  fulfilment 
of  prediction,  the  established  body  of  science, 
the  objective  validity  of  truth  and  its  distinc- 
tion from  error,  the  necessity  of  all  finite  minds 
to  think  alike  on  all  subjects  which,  like  mathe- 
matics and  demonstrated  science,  admit  of  perfect 
clearness  and  distinctness,  —  these  facts  require 
for  their  explanation  a  common  ground  of  unity 
between  nature  and  the  mind  of  man ;  a  bond 
and  basis  of  intelligibility  between  different  minds  ; 
a  supreme  source  and  standard  of  truth  authori- 
tative over  all  finite  minds.  Such  a  ground  of 
unity,  and  bond  of  intelligibility,  and  source  and 
standard  of  truth  can  be  found  in  nothing  short 
of  the  Absolute  Thought,  the  Infinite  Spirit,  or 
God. 

As  the  uniform  order  of  physical  events,  and 
science  which  is  its  mental  equivalent  and  corre- 
late, reveals  the  Absolute  Mind ;  so  the  developing 
order  of  human  society,  and  morality  which  is  its 
subjective  counterpart,  reveals  the  Universal  Will. 

When  Socrates  preaches  moral  doctrine  con- 
trary to  the  conventional  Athenian  tradition,  why 


THEOLOGICAL  1 7 

should  he  die  rather  than  renounce  his  voca- 
tion ?  If  it  is  a  mere  question  of  individual 
preference,  all  Athens  is  more  likely  to  be  right 
than  a  single  individual.  Socrates  affirms  that 
it  is  not  his  private  opinion  which  he  is  setting 
forth,  but  an  absolute  and  eternal  right  of  which 
he  is  the  mouthpiece.  How  does  he  know  this? 
Because  with  his  doctrine  he  can  see  the  facts 
of  the  moral  life,  as  one  harmonious  whole. 
Without  it  he  sees  that  these  facts  contradict 
each  other ;  and  he  is  prepared  to  manifest 
these  contradictions  to  any  one  who  will  con- 
sent to  answer  his  questions  on  these  points. 
It  was  because  of  his  confidence  in  a  right  not 
of  his  own  making  or  choosing,  that  he  refused 
to  abandon  his  teaching.  Hence  his  boldness. 
"  If  you  say  to  me,  Socrates,  this  time  we  will 
let  you  off,  but  upon  one  condition,  that  you 
are  not  to  inquire  and  speculate  in  this  way  any 
more,  and  that  if  you  are  caught  doing  this 
again  you  shall  die, — if  this  was  the  condi- 
tion on  which  you  let  me  go,  I  should  reply : 
1  Men  of  Athens,  I  honour  and  love  you ;  but 
I  shall  obey  God  rather  than  you,  and  while  I 
have  life  and  breath  I  shall  never  cease  from 
the  practice  and  teaching  of  philosophy.'  For 
I  do  believe  that  there  are  gods,  and  in  a  far 
c 


jg  social  theology 

higher  sense    than   that   in   which   any  of  my    ac- 
cusers believe  in  them." 

At  first  sight  the  customs  and  institutions  of 
different  ages,  races,  and  nations  seem  as  conflicting 
and  chaotic  as  the  forces  of  nature  seem  to  the 
unscientific  mind.  Yet  while  the  specific  customs 
and  institutions  of  society  are  undergoing  perpetual 
change,  the  great  purpose  at  which  these  seem- 
ingly inconsistent  and  actually  conflicting  prin- 
ciples and  practices  are  aiming  is  constant  and 
unvarying.  That  purpose  is  such  an  adjustment 
of  the  several  members  of  society  to  each  other 
that  out  of  their  united  action  there  may  result  a 
harmonious  social  order  in  which  each  individual 
shall  be  at  once  the  servant  and  the  lord  of  all.  In 
the  beginnings  of  society  this  purpose  is  indeed 
hidden  underneath  intolerable  burdens  of  usurpa- 
tion and  tyranny  ;  and  the  course  of  social  evolu- 
tion is  marked  by  oppression,  corruption,  and  the 
betrayal  of  the  common  interest  by  those  whom 
inheritance,  or  power,  or  wealth,  or  popular  elec- 
tion have  constituted  its  guardians  and  defenders. 
And  yet  the  fact  that  we  recognize  these  things  as 
wrong,  and  the  fact  that  by  revolution  and  rebel- 
lion, by  agitation  and  reform,  society  has  succeeded 
in  correcting  these  abuses  and  dethroning  these 
usurpers,  shows  that  underneath  all  the  injustices 


THEOLOGICAL  1 9 

and  wrongs  it  has  endured  there  has  been  ever 
present,  as  the  silent  judge  and  the  omnipotent 
avenger,  the  social  ideal  of  a  society  in  which  each 
individual  is  at  once  end  and  means  to  every 
other. 

And  if  we  turn  from  the  outward  social  ideal  to 
the  inner  moral  standard,  or  conscience,  we  find 
even  clearer  evidence  of  the  presence  of  a  Will 
higher  than  our  own.  Morality  is  something  far 
deeper  than  the  prudential  regulation  of  personal 
conduct  for  private  advantage,  although  such 
prudence  is  an  important  and  essential  element 
of  morality.  In  the  deeper  moral  experience  we 
come  face  to  face  with  a  "  categorical  impera- 
tive." We  recognize  that  the  doing  of  duty  is 
what  makes  us  men.  We  feel  that  to  be  false 
to  duty  is  to  violate  our  inmost  nature,  and  to  be 
unworthy  of  a  place  in  the  world  in  which  we  live. 
This  sense  of  responsibility  for  conduct  is  the 
fundamental  instinct  of  the  race. 

Now  the  contents  of  this  moral  ideal  are  drawn 
from  and  correspond  to  the  requirements  of  the 
social  order  of  which  we  form  a  part.  To  be  a 
good  member  of  society,  and  to  have  a  clear  con- 
science, are  the  outer  and  inner  aspects  of  one 
and  the  selfsame  thing.  You  can  distinguish 
these  two  aspects  in  thought,  but  you  can  no  more 


20  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

separate  them  in  fact  than  you  can  separate  the 
convexity  of  the  outside  from  the  concavity  of  the 
inside  of  a  circle.  And  yet,  while  drawn  from  and 
dependent  upon  the  outer  social  order,  the  moral 
ideal  is  always  transcending  this  order.  The  good 
individual  owes  all  his  goodness  to  the  society  in 
which  he  has  been  reared  ;  and  yet  he  feels  called 
upon  to  give  back  to  that  social  order  services 
and  standards  which  tend  to  make  it  better.  In 
a  word,  while  the  ideal  of  human  life  is  embodied 
and  preserved  in  society,  it  is  developed  in  the 
consciences  and  advanced  by  the  efforts  of  indi- 
viduals. 

This  constant  correlation  of  the  outer  order 
of  society  and  the  inner  ideal  of  conduct  requires 
some  common  ground  as  its  explanation.  As  the 
correlation  of  physical  facts  with  human  science 
involves  an  Absolute  Mind  expressed  in  nature 
and  progressively  unfolding  himself  to  the  advanc- 
ing science  of  man  ;  so  this  correlation  of  the 
social  order  and  the  moral  ideal  involves  a  Univer- 
sal Will  embodied  in  the  progressive  evolution  of 
the  social  order,  and  revealed  in  the  ever-expanding 
ideal  of  the  moral  life.  And  as  the  impulse  toward 
scientific  discovery  rests  on  the  belief  that  the 
science  which  we  know  is  only  a  fragment  of  the 
infinite  science  as  it  exists  in  the  Absolute  Mind  ; 


THEOLOGICAL  2 1 

so  the  impulse  to  moral  reform  springs  from  an 
implicit  faith  that  the  social  institutions  and  moral 
standards  prevalent  at  a  given  time  are  but  arcs  of 
the  infinite  circle,  stages  in  the  eternal  process  by 
which  the  Universal  Will  is  realizing  his  purpose 
in  society,  and  reproducing  his  likeness  in  the 
hearts  of  men. 

Again,  just  as  the  possibility  of  error  is  proof 
positive  of  the  reality  of  truth,  and  of  an  absolute 
basis  of  truth  in  the  Infinite  Mind  ;  so  the  con- 
sciousness of  wrong  is  the  infallible  witness  of  the 
reality  of  right,  and  of  its  eternal  ground  in  the 
Universal  Will  that  makes  for  righteousness.  If 
I  were  the  only  being  in  the  universe,  then  my  pri- 
vate caprice  and  fancy  would  be  supreme.  To  be 
sure,  one  impulse  of  mine  even  then  might  come 
into  conflict  with  another,  and  I  should  discover 
that  this  isolated  self  is  more  than  the  sum  of 
its  particular  states.  But  whatever  should  give 
me  permanent  satisfaction  would  therefore  justify 
itself  as  right ;  because  by  hypothesis  there  would 
be  no  other  interests  with  which  it  could  conflict. 
Why  is  it  then  that  I  am  dissatisfied,  ashamed, 
conscious  of  guilt,  when  I  have  done  something 
which  seems  to  perfectly  promote  my  interests  as 
an  individual?  Because  I  am  more  than  an  indi- 
vidual, and  am    conscious    of  the  claims  of  other 


22  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

beings  upon  me.  But  how  comes  it  to  pass  that 
these  other  beings,  and  society  which  is  the  organ- 
ization of  the  interests  of  these  other  beings,  have 
a  claim  upon  me  ?  To  be  sure,  they,  and  society  as 
their  agent,  may  punish  me  if  I  offend  them.  But 
this  guilt  and  shame  and  sense  of  ill-desert,  though 
historically  originating  in  experience  of  actual 
punishment,  has  come  to  be  a  far  deeper  senti- 
ment than  mere  fear  of  external  penalty  accounts 
for ;  and  there  are  many  wrongs  I  can  commit 
against  society  of  which  neither  the  law  nor  public 
sentiment  will  ever  take  the  slightest  notice.  And 
yet  I  feel  condemned.  I  feel  that  these  other 
beings  and  their  interests  belong  to  me  and  are 
part  of  my  own  proper  interest.  This  conscious- 
ness of  wrong,  this  sense  of  guilt,  is  the  persistent 
witness  to  the  fact  that  in  our  inmost  being  we 
are  one  with  those  whose  rights  we  have  disre- 
garded, and  a  member  of  that  social  order  whose 
laws  we  have  disobeyed.  The  consciousness  of  a 
limit  is  the  knowledge  of  that  which  transcends 
the  limit.  The  confession  of  guilt  is  the  acknowl- 
edgment of  obligation.  The  insufficiency  of  the 
private  self  is  the  revelation  of  the  identification 
of  self  with  society. 

Here,  through  the  attempt  to  break  the    bond 
which   binds  us  to   our  fellows,  we   discover  how 


THEOLOGICAL 


23 


strong  it  is,  and  how  impossible  it  is  for  us  to  cast 
it  off.  This  bond  which  binds  all  men  together, 
making  authoritative  for  each  the  rights  of  all,  can 
be  nothing  less  than  the  Universal  Will  which 
holds  all  beings  as  the  objects  of  an  impartial  in- 
terest and  an  equal  devotion.  The  progressive 
and  purposeful  order  of  society ;  the  correlation  of 
the  social  order  and  the  moral  ideal ;  and  the  im- 
possibility of  escaping  even  by  wrongdoing  from 
the  bond  that  binds  the  individual  to  society  con- 
stitute the  evidence  from  the  social  order  and  the 
moral  ideal  of  the  existence  of  the  Universal  Will. 

These  lines  of  thought  preserve  what  is  valua- 
ble in  the  substance,  while  they  avoid  what  is  inade- 
quate in  the  form  of  the  traditional  proofs  of  the 
existence  of  God.  As  demonstrations  of  the  exist- 
ence of  a  Being  anterior  to  creation  and  external 
to  the  world,  these  proofs  are  fallacious  in  method 
and  illusory  in  result.  As  expositions  of  imma- 
nent causality  and  immanent  teleology  and  imma- 
nent rationality  in  nature  and  in  man,  they  all 
contain  elements  of  truth. 

The  cosmological  argument  for  a  first  cause  is 
unsatisfactory  ;  for  it  rests  on  an  unwarranted  pro- 
jection of  an  analogy  which,  just  because  it  is 
true  of  interdependent  finite  phenomena,  is  by  no 
means  sure  to    hold   true  of  the  relation  of   phe- 


24  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

nomena  as  a  whole  to  an  external  source.  And 
even  if  we  could  prove  such  an  external  first 
cause,  it  would  be  of  little  use  to  us  ;  for  such  an 
extraneous  source  of  phenomena  either  is  mani- 
fested in  the  effect,  in  which  case  he  is  more 
than  the  mere  cause ;  or  else  he  is  not  mani- 
fested in  the  effect ;  in  which  case  he  at  once 
vanishes  into  the  thin  air  of  Mr.  Spencer's  Un- 
knowable ;  or  at  best  remains  "  the  Great  First 
Cause,  least  understood." 

The  argument  from  design  is  nearer  the  truth  ; 
but  at  best  can  give  but  half  the  truth.  The  de- 
signer is  limited  by  the  materials  he  works  with  ; 
and  we  can  never  be  sure  that  the  plan  which  we 
discover  is  precisely  the  plan  he  had  in  mind. 
That  there  is  an  "immanent  purposiveness"  in  the 
world,  all  our  aesthetic  and  moral  experience  in- 
deed attests.  But  that  an  external  will  impressed 
this  or  that  stamp  upon  it  at  this  or  that  moment 
in  time,  we  cannot  assume.  The  moral  argument, 
in  so  far  as  it  bases  belief  in  God  on  the  hope  of 
righteous  retribution,  whereby  the  evils  of  this 
world  shall  be  righted  in  the  next,  is  an  inference 
from  the  absence  of  justice  here  to  its  existence 
elsewhere  ;  and  carries  no  conviction.  Still  less, 
according  to  the  general  interpretation  of  the  onto- 
logical  argument,  are  we  justified  in   leaping  from 


THEOLOGICAL 


25 


the  requirements  of  our  accidental  notions  to  the 
necessities  of  things. 

The  cosmological  argument  is  right  in  its  recog- 
nition that  interdependent  finite  phenomena  must 
have  a  Ground  ;  but  it  is  wrong  in  placing  that 
Ground  back  somewhere  in  time.  The  physico- 
teleological  argument  is  right  in  its  recognition  of 
purpose  ;  but  is  wrong  in  thrusting  that  purpose 
outside  of  the  world.  The  moral  argument  is 
right  in  affirming  retribution  ;  but  it  is  wrong  in 
postponing  that  retribution  to  a  remote  future. 
The  ontological  argument  is  right  in  affirming 
that  the  Infinite  and  Absolute  is  a  necessity  of 
thought ;  but  is  wrong  in  assuming  that  there  is  a 
world  of  reality  other  than  the  world  of  thought, 
to  which  the  conditions  of  thought  may  or  may 
not  apply.  These  arguments  are  all  stages  of  a 
single  process  by  which  man  has  sought  to  con- 
fess the  dependence  of  all  things  upon  an  Abso- 
lute Ground ;  the  participation  of  all  beings  in  an 
Infinite  Purpose;  the  obligation  of  all  men  to  an 
Eternal  Will  ;  the  presupposition  in  all  thinking 
of  a  Universal  Reason. 

What  then  is  the  logical  character  of  our  belief 
in  such  a  Being  ?  We  cannot  prove  it  by  deduc- 
tion ;  for  there  is  nothing  greater  from  which  such 
a   Being    might    be   deduced.     No  major  premise 


26  SOCIAL   THEOLOGY 

can  be  found  which  will  warrant  so  vast  a  conclu- 
sion. Neither  by  induction  of  an  indefinite  num- 
ber of  particulars  can  we  arrive  at  an  infinite  being 
which  includes  them  all.  No  mere  aggregate  of 
particulars  can  constitute  the  universal. 

Is  the  belief  in  God  then  merely  a  working 
hypothesis,  as  President  Schurman  is  content  to 
call  it  ?  No.  An  hypothesis,  as  its  etymology 
signifies,  is  something  which  we  ////  under  facts, 
in  order  to  explain  them.  The  Absolute  Mind, 
however,  is  not  something  which  we  put  behind 
nature  and  the  mind  of  man  to  explain  their  agree- 
ment. It  is  there  of  itself.  It  is  presupposed  in 
the  facts.  It  is  the  source  of  science  and  the 
foundation  of  morals.  Were  there  no  Absolute 
Mind,  there  could  be  no  science  ;  were  there  no 
Universal  Will,  there  could  be  no  firm  basis  for 
morality.  Science  and  morality,  however,  are  real, 
patent,  indisputable  facts.  Therefore,  that  with- 
out which  these  facts  could  not  be,  must  exist.  If 
you  have  two  mountains,  you  must  have  the  valley 
between  them,  which  by  their  very  nature  the  moun- 
tains require  as  the  condition  of  their  own  exist- 
ence. If  you  have  two  bones  which  fit  into  each 
other,  you  have  absolute  proof  of  the  prior  exist- 
ence of  the  whole  animal  body,  with  its  other 
bones,  its  flesh  and  blood,  its  heart  and  lungs,  its 


THEOLOGICAL  27 

nerves  and  muscles,  without  which  these  two 
bones,  related  to  each  other  as  they  are,  could 
not  have  come  into  being.  Given  the  fact  of  these 
bones,  and  the  organic  relations  between  them, 
and  the  existence  of  the  organism  is  not  merely 
a  hypothesis.  It  is  a  certainty.  If  the  bones  are 
facts,  the  body  of  which  they  were  members  must 
have  been  a  fact  as  well. 

The  world  and  the  self,  and  their  correlation  in 
science,  are  related  members  which  fit  into  each 
other  perfectly,  and  yet  which  are  incomplete 
in  themselves,  and  require  One  Infinite  Reason 
for  their  explanation.  The  social  order  and  the 
moral  ideal  again  are  likewise  two  mutually  con- 
ditioned members,  which  presuppose  for  their 
rational  interpretation  an  Absolute  Will.  The 
partial  science  of  a  given  age  is  the  witness  and 
prophecy  of  an  absolute  standard  of  truth,  a  com- 
plete circle  of  knowledge,  by  which  its  propositions 
are  judged  to  be  true,  of  which  its  fragmentary 
discoveries  are  arcs  and  elements.  The  progres- 
sive moral  order  is  likewise  the  gradual  unfolding 
of  a  righteous  purpose  from  which  its  institutions 
derive  their  stability  and  its  precepts  their  author- 
ity. Since  the  truths  of  science  are  not  subjective 
fancies,  but  are  stubborn  facts  ;  since  the  laws  and 
institutions   of  morality   are   not   the  products  of 


28  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

individual  caprice,  but  eternal  realities  ;  therefore, 
the  Absolute  Reason  and  Eternal  Righteousness 
which  they  reveal  and  presuppose  must  also  be 
real,  actual,  objective;  must  exist. 

God  is  not  a  mere  hypothesis  which  we  put 
under  the  facts ;  as  subjective  idealism  claims. 
He  is  the  hypostasis,  in  the  literal  meaning  of  the 
term,  who  stands  tinder  the  facts,  and  gives  them 
the  reality  they  have.  What  the  skeleton  is  to 
the  constituent  bones;  what  the  solar  system  is 
to  the  included  planets  ;  what  the  family  is  to 
its  members  ;  what  the  nation  is  to  the  citizens ; 
all  that  and  more  God  is  to  every  truth  that 
man  thinks  after  him  and  every  law  his  universe 
contains.  He  is  in  all  and  through  all  and  over 
all.  He  is  immanent  in  each  individual  mind  and 
each  particular  atom.  Yet  as  an  organism  is  more 
than  the  sum  of  its  parts,  God  is  transcendent  in 
the  sense  that  all  particulars  are  but  incomplete 
and  fragmentary  revelations  of  his  mind  and  will. 

This  fundamental  intuition  that  the  mutually 
related,  interdependent,  finite  facts  of  the  world 
and  the  self  involve  as  their  necessary  presup- 
position and  only  possible  explanation  the  Abso- 
lute and  Infinite,  which  cannot  be  cast  in 
syllogistic  form  simply  because  it  bears  witness 
to  the  universal  major  premise  on  which  all  formal 


THEOLOGICAL  29 

reasoning  rests,  assures  us  that  God  exists.  Does 
it  tell  us  anything  about  him  ?  Have  we  any  right 
to  identify  the  Absolute  of  philosophy  with  the 
God  of  religion  ?  Does  this  line  of  thought  justify 
us  in  calling  him  a  person  ? 

The  whole  cannot  be  less  than  its  parts.  The 
organism  cannot  be  inferior  to  its  constituent 
members.  The  infinite  cannot  exclude  anything 
the  finite  contains.  Now  self-consciousness,  per- 
sonality, is  the  crowning  glory  of  man,  the  highest 
of  finite  beings.  Hence  the  Infinite  Being  whom 
all  finite  things  and  finite  thoughts  and  finite 
beings  presuppose  cannot  be  less  than  self-con- 
scious and  personal.  He  includes  all  the  thoughts 
and  acts  of  finite  persons  in  the  unity  of  his  larger 
thought  and  will ;  either  approving  or  condemning 
them.  He  is  as  personal  as  we  are ;  for  in  him 
we  live  and  move  and  have  our  being.  He  is 
more  of  a  person  than  we  are ;  for  the  progressive 
thought  of  man  is  ever  taking  up  into  its  science 
more  and  more  of  that  body  of  truth  which  con- 
stitutes his  eternal  thought ;  and  advancing  civili- 
zation is  steadily  enlarging  and  improving  the 
social  structure  which  is  the  embodiment  of  his 
unfolding"  will. 

There  are  limits  to  human  personality,  as  there 
are  limits  to  human  stature  and  human  strength. 


30  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

But  as  God's  omnipresence  includes  the  space 
occupied  by  our  bodies,  without  being  limited  to 
the  outlines  of  our  forms  ;  as  God's  omnipotence 
includes  the  strength  of  horses  and  oxen,  without 
being  confined  to  those  modes  of  manifestation  ; 
so  the  divine  personality  includes  all  that  is  posi- 
tive in  human  personality,  without  being  confined 
within  the  narrow  limits  of  human  finitude.  As 
Lotze  says,  "  Perfect  personality  is  reconcilable 
only  with  the  conception  of  an  Infinite  Being ;  for 
finite  beings  only  an  approximation  to  this  is 
attainable."  Paulsen  and  Pfleiderer  express  the 
same  thought  when  they  say  that  God  cannot  by 
any  possibility  be  infra-personal.  If  we  take  the 
personality  of  finite  beings  as  the  standard,  it 
would  be  more  correct  to  say  that  He  is  supra- 
personal.  God  is  all  that  we  know  of  personality  ; 
and  vastly  more  which  we  cannot  comprehend. 
But  since  the  unknown  is  to  us  the  unmeaning, 
the  most  appropriate  and  the  perfectly  justifiable 
representation  of  his  nature,  is  personality  as  we 
know  it  in  ourselves.  This  is,  to  be  sure,  not  the 
whole  truth  :  but  it  is  a  genuine  part  of  the  truth  ; 
the  most  valuable  aspect  of  the  truth  ;  and  the 
one  which  best  serves  our  practical  spiritual  needs. 
The  thought  of  God  as  Infinite  Spirit  is  thus 
warranted  by  philosophy  and  justified  by  religion. 


THEOLOGICAL  3 1 

Such  a  conception  leaves  indeed  much  that  is 
unknown  in  the  nature  and  the  ways  of  God. 
That  any  reverent  view  must  do.  It,  however, 
expressly  excludes  agnosticism.  Any  view  of 
God  which  puts  him  before  the  universe  in  time, 
or  behind  it  as  a  cause  or  force,  or  outside  of  it 
as  mere  creator  and  governor,  leads  ultimately  to 
agnosticism.  For  knowledge  draws  its  materials 
from  the  actual,  the  present,  the  immanent.  And 
God  must  be  found  and  known  here  or  nowhere. 
The  idea  of  God  as  Infinite  Spirit  ;  as  Absolute 
Ground  of  all  finite  phenomena;  as  the  Indwelling 
Self  within  all  finite  selves,  is  preeminently  the 
idea  of  a  known  and  infinitely  knowable  God.  All 
our  knowledge  of  nature  is  so  far  forth  knowledge 
of  God.  All  natural  and  moral  laws  are  expressions 
of  the  Divine  Thought  and  Will.  All  our  con- 
sciousness of  ourselves ;  all  the  expression  of  their 
deeper  selves  that  men  have  wrought  in  history 
and  uttered  in  literature  are  revelations  of  God. 
The  source  and  standard  of  all  accepted  science 
and  established  institutions,  the  promise  of  ever- 
increasing  discovery  and  the  ideal  and  goal  of 
ever-progressing  morality,  is  God.  He  is  partially 
known,  progressively  revealing  himself,  absolutely 
knowable.  Not  toward  him  as  some  "far-off  divine 
event,"  but  in  him  as  the  present  and  pervasive 


32  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

life,  including  "all  objects  of  all  thought,"  the 
whole  creation  lives  and  moves.  As  we  know 
just  as  much  about  a  curve  as  we  know  about  its 
constituent  arcs  ;  as  we  can  construct,  symboli- 
cally at  least,  the  total  curve  from  a  very  few 
given  points  ;  so  we  know  as  much  about  God  as 
we  know  about  ourselves  and  the  world.  From 
the  facts  and  implications  which  the  world  and  the 
self  contain  we  can  construct  a  representative  con- 
ception, true  as  far  as  it  goes,  of  the  Absolute 
Being  in  whom  self  and  the  world  are  related  ele- 
ments, and  of  whom  they  are  so  far  forth  the 
authentic  revelation  and  expression.  The  most 
important  and  significant  of  the  data  from  which 
this  representative  conception  must  be  constructed 
is  the  self-conscious  personality  of  man.  And  any 
representation  of  God  which  excludes  this  element 
is  not  merely  inadequate,  as  all  symbolical  repre- 
sentations must  be,  but  it  is  needlessly  inadequate, 
inasmuch  as  it  deliberately  omits  from  the  formula 
of  the  infinite  curve  the  most  important  datum 
given  in  the  finite  arc.  The  fact  that  we  are  per- 
sons ;  that  we  are  incomplete  and  finite  persons ; 
that  we  know  and  recognize  our  incompleteness  ; 
that  we  are  ever  enlarging  the  sphere  of  our 
thought  and  will ;  that  such  enlargement  is  possi- 
ble  only   in   case   there    is    an    infinite    sphere    of 


THEOLOGICAL  33 

thought  and  will  into  which  our  own  thought  and 
will  enters  and  which  it  progressively  appropriates 
in  the  advancing  science  and  civilization  of  the 
world  ;  —  this  fact  is  all  the  evidence  we  need,  the 
only  evidence  which  the  nature  of  the  problem 
makes  possible,  of  the  personality  of  the  Absolute. 
That  in  which  our  personality  lives  and  moves  and 
has  its  being  ;  that  which  is  the  presupposition  of 
personality  in  us,  cannot  be  less  than  personal. 
That  by  which  we  think  cannot  be  unthinking  and 
unthought. 

The  conclusion  which  we  have  thus  reached  by 
reflection  upon  the  dependent,  relative,  and  finite 
character  of  phenomena,  and  especially  of  our  own 
intellectual  and  moral  experience,  has  been  reached 
in  the  history  of  the  race  by  a  very  long  and 
gradual  process.  And  yet  at  the  heart  of  the 
whole  process  from  first  to  last  we  find  the  recog- 
nition of  the  incompleteness  of  the  finite,  the 
dependence  of  the  relative,  and  the  endeavour  to 
transcend  that  finitude  and  lay  hold  of  the  ground 
of  that  dependence. 

First  this  ground  of  dependence  is  represented 
to  the  mind  by  the  promiscuous  personification  of 
all  sorts  of  natural  objects.  With  deepening  re- 
flection, the  spirit  is  separated  from  the  object, 
and  thus  arises  fetichism,  or  the  attempt  to  control 


34  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

the  spirits  which  are  supposed  to  dwell  in  natural 
objects.  From  this  the  transition  to  the  worship 
of  the  spirits  of  departed  ancestors  is  a  natural 
advance.  Increasing  knowledge  of  the  larger  as- 
pects and  mightier  forces  of  nature  led  to  the 
worship  of  great  nature-spirits,  mythological  divin- 
ities, in  which  were  united  the  power  of  nature  and 
the  caprice  of  man.  With  the  progress  of  civiliza- 
tion, man  comes  to  be  less  and  less  dependent  on 
the  crude  forces  of  external  nature,  and  more  and 
more  dependent  on  moral,  industrial,  social,  and 
political  customs  and  institutions.  And  accord- 
ingly at  this  stage  of  development  he  reveres 
Gods  of  war,  of  wisdom,  of  craft,  of  love,  pro- 
tectors of  homes,  guardians  of  cities,  rulers  of 
nations.  Next,  if  we  may  neglect  the  side  cur- 
rents of  Oriental  quietism,  comes  the  recognition 
of  a  single  World-Ruler  who  rules  in  righteous- 
ness all  the  nations  of  the  earth ;  who  is  the 
upholder  and  vindicator  of  the  one  moral  order 
which  is  common  to  all  mankind.  This  conscious- 
ness of  the  One  God  was  dimly  apprehended  by 
a  few  of  the  philosophers  of  Greece ;  but  in 
clearest  outline  and  most  popular  and  effective 
form  it  was  revealed  to  the  Jews.  Here  was  elab- 
orated a  ceremonial,  which,  if  it  shared  the  bloody 
and  barbarous  features  of  surrounding  nations,  still 


THEOLOGICAL 


35 


was  free  from  the  two  greatest  defects  of  the  con- 
temporary religious  cults,  idolatry  and  licentious- 
ness. Here  was  gradually  developed  the  most 
just,  humane,  and  merciful  moral  code  the  world 
had  thus  far  known  ;  and  here  to  a  degree  far 
surpassing  any  other  nation  the  duties  of  moral- 
ity were  identified  with  the  service  of  God  and 
enforced  by  the  sanctions  of  religion.  Here  too 
were  first  heard  the  clear  tones  of  prophet  and 
psalmist,  appealing  from  the  letter  of  the  law  and 
the  performance  of  the  rite  to  the  attitude  of  the 
heart  and  the  spirit  of  the  life  ;  and  declaring  that 
the  true  service  of  God  is  the  just  administration 
of  national  and  social  affairs  and  the  merciful 
treatment  of  one's  fellowmen.  Ethical  monothe- 
ism, the  doctrine  that  we  depend  upon  and  owe 
allegiance  to  One  God  who  is  the  author  and  vin- 
dicator of  the  moral  order  and  the  social  institu- 
tions of  the  world  ;  this  is  the  contribution  of  Israel 
to  the  religious  life  of  man.  And  this  doctrine  is 
so  true,  so  final,  so  beneficent,  that,  while  its  ritual 
is  superseded,  its  code  transcended,  and  all  its  local 
and  peculiar  setting  outgrown ;  yet  by  virtue  of 
this  eternal  truth  which  the  history  of  the  Hebrew 
race  reveals  with  inimitable  freshness  and  incom- 
parable clearness,  the  history  and  literature  of 
Israel  is  rightly  regarded  as  the  revelation  of  God. 


36  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

This  conception  of  a  World-Governor,  however, 
is  not  adequate  to  express  the  intimate  identifica- 
tion of  God  with  nature  and  humanity.  Even 
government,  especially  when  conceived  after  the 
analogy  of  the  ancient  monarchies,  has  an  element 
of  externality  about  it,  which  fails  to  express  that 
union  of  the  organism  with  its  members  which  is 
the  true  figure  under  which  we  conceive  God's 
relation  to  the  world  of  men  and  things.  Is  there 
then  any  relation  in  which  the  distinction  of  per- 
sonality is  combined  with  the  unity  of  sympathy 
and  purpose  ?  Is  there  any  sphere  in  which,  with- 
out destroying  individuality,  the  life  of  the  whole 
organism  is  distributed  through  each  of  the  mem- 
bers, and  gives  that  unity  in  the  midst  of  differ- 
ences which  is  the  essence  of  social  and  spiritual 
life  ? 

Yes  ;  there  is  one  such  relation.  It  is  found  in 
the  family.  The  family  is  the  type  of  a  spiritual 
or  social  life  in  which  one  body  is  composed  of 
many  members.  The  head  and  representative  of 
the  family  is  the  father.  The  rule  of  the  father 
over  his  family  is  not  the  imposition  of  a  law  from 
without  ;  but  is  the  assertion  of  the  common  in- 
terest of  all  as  obligatory  upon  the  will  of  each. 
The  father  is  simply  the  head  and  representative 
of  the  total  interest  of  the  family  in  which  each 


THEOLOGICAL  37 

member  shares  alike.  He  seeks  not  his  individual 
will  ;  but  rather  the  good  of  all  the  members. 
The  authority  of  the  father  is  not  an  arbitrary  law 
or  a  legal  abstraction.  It  is  simply  the  assertion 
of  the  common  well-being. 

Now  this  is  precisely  the  relation  in  which  the 
Absolute  stands  to  the  relative.  This  is  the  mode 
of  union  between  the  Infinite  and  the  finite.  It  is 
in  just  this  way  that  the  Universal  includes  the 
particular.  If  then  we  are  to  express  the  relation 
of  God  to  man  by  the  symbol  which  is  least  inade- 
quate and  most  suggestive  of  the  truth,  we  shall 
call  him,  not  Cause,  nor  Substance,  nor  Creator, 
nor  Governor,  but  Father ;  as  Jesus  teaches  us 
to  do. 

Still  even  here  we  must  be  on  our  guard  against 
the  material  side  of  this  symbol,  which  would  lead 
us  to  regard  the  Father  as  one  individual  among 
or  over  others.  The  spiritual  essence  of  father- 
hood is  the  comprehensive  thought,  the  sympa- 
thetic feeling,  the  devoted  will,  which  makes  the 
welfare  of  each  member  of  the  family  the  object 
of  constant  consideration,  and  unchanging  affec- 
tion, and  unwearied  devotion.  God  is  our  Father, 
because  he  is  the  all-embracing  thought  which 
includes  each  thought  and  action  of  every  human 
mind  ;  because  he  is  the  holy  will  which  presents 


38  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

the  ideal  of  conduct  and  the  demand  of  duty  to 
every  finite  will  ;  because  he  is  the  loving  heart 
which  finds  no  human  soul  alien  to  itself ;  because 
he  is  the  bond  which  binds  things  and  thoughts 
together;  because  he  is  the  unity  in  which  society 
and  individuals  find  their  common  ground  and 
from  which  they  derive  their  mutual  obligation ; 
because  he  is  the  Spirit  in  whom  we  live  and 
move  and  have  our  being ;  who  is  never  far  from 
any  one  of  us,  for  we  are  his  offspring. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  REAL  AND  THE  IDEAL THE  SON 

In  the  first  chapter  we  saw  that  all  the  phenom- 
ena of  nature  and  all  the  interests  of  men  are  pres- 
ent to  an  Absolute  Mind  who  includes  them  in  the 
unity  of  one  thought,  and  makes  them  the  objects 
of  one  love.  To  this  "  personal  Absolute  whom 
faith  calls  God"  we  gave  the  name  "Our  Father," 
because  the  family  life,  and  the  father  as  its  head 
and  representative,  is  the  best  example  we  have  of 
many  individual  members  held  together  in  the 
unity  of  a  single  spirit. 

Belief  in  God  most  people  take  for  granted. 
And  yet  the  intuitive  belief  in  God  is  apt  to  be  a 
half-pictorial  representation  of  a  mighty  individual, 
outside  of  the  world,  arbitrary  in  his  decrees,  re- 
mote from  the  daily  life  and  foreign  to  the  habit- 
ual thought  of  men.  And  while  it  is  possible  to 
develop  an  individualistic  theology  out  of  such  a 
figurative  conception  of  an  external  and  arbitrary 
Being,  it  is  impossible  out  of  such  a  conception  to 
develop  a  social  theology,  which  will  show  the  laws 

39 


40  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

of  moral  life  and  the  forms  of  social  institutions  as 
essential  expressions  of  the  life  of  God  in  men. 
This  belief  in  an  Absolute  Mind,  even  though  we 
ascribe  the  name  Father  and  attribute  to  him 
a  kindly  disposition,  is  only  the  foundation  of  the- 
ology. It  answers  well  enough  as  an  interpreta- 
tion of  nature,  but  the  pantheistic  optimism  to 
which  it  gives  rise  is  a  poor  defence  against  the 
wrongs  and  miseries,  the  struggle  and  competition, 
of  actual  life. 

Life  presents  problems  of  its  own,  and  brings 
out  the  deeper  antithesis  of  the  real  and  the  ideal. 
The  plant  and  animal  have  within  themselves  a 
principle  which  is  different  and  distinct  from  that  of 
the  inanimate  world.  Being  produced  in  connec- 
tion with  a  definite  environment,  they  are  given  a 
fair  start ;  since  unless  the  environment  had  been 
fitted  to  sustain  them  they  could  not  have  been 
produced.  But  nature's  nursing  period  is  brief. 
A  new  environment  quickly  follows  upon  the  old  ; 
and  to  this  new  environment  the  original  form  is 
not  fitted.  It  must  become  fit  or  perish.  The 
chance  of  becoming  fit  is  offered  in  the  fact  of 
variation  and  enormous  fecundity.  In  the  lower 
forms  of  life  each  individual  or  pair  leaves  a  mul- 
titude of  offspring  ;  of  which  no  two  are  exactly 
alike.     Of  this    multitude    those    only    which    by 


THEOLOGICAL  41 

merit  or  fortune  best  fit  the  changed  environment 
survive.  And  while  what  we  may  call  accident 
plays  a  large  part  in  determining  which  individ- 
uals of  any  given  generation  shall  survive  ;  in  the 
course  of  many  generations  the  survivals  due  to 
mere  outward  fortune  are  sifted  out,  and  only 
those  which  are  inherently  fitted  to  the  new  con- 
ditions survive  and  reproduce.  Heredity  helps  on 
the  process  of  adjustment;  though  in  what  man- 
ner and  to  what  extent  is  now  a  matter  of  dispute. 
The  survival  of  the  fittest  is  secured  by  a  process 
of  natural  selection  which  is  automatic  as  gravi- 
tation or  chemical  affinity. 

Is  natural  selection  a  beneficent  process  ?  It 
certainly  involves  much  suffering,  and  frightful 
slaughter.  And  yet  it  is  difficult  to  see  how  any 
other  process  could  be  more  merciful.  To  permit 
forms  to  outlive  the  state  of  things  to  which  they 
were  originally  adapted  would  be  not  kindness 
but  protracted  cruelty.  To  give  the  ground  to 
the  less  fit  in  preference  to  the  more  fit,  would 
be  unjust  as  well  as  unkind.  Fitness  is  doubtless 
purchased  at  a  high  price.  But  unfitness  would 
cost  more  and  be  worth  less.  Given  the  fact  of 
evolution,  and  the  purpose  to  develop  independent 
organisms,  capable  of  becoming  centres  of  individ- 
ual life,  it  is  impossible  to  conceive  how  this  pur- 


42  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

pose  could  be  accomplished  better.  Short  of 
miraculous  creation  to  begin  with,  and  constant 
arbitrary  interference  from  without,  there  is  no 
way  by  which  the  price  of  the  perfection  of  species 
could  be  lowered.  And  although  special  creation 
and  external  interference  are  phrases  which  seem 
to  carry  meaning ;  yet,  when  put  to  the  test  as  an 
explanation  of  any  world-process  whatsoever,  they 
would  certainly  break  down  under  the  weight  of 
detail  they  would  have  to  bear. 

That  the  less  perfect  shall  perish  and  the  more 
perfect  shall  survive,  that  the  real  shall  be  in  constant 
subjection  to  the  ideal,  is  the  inexorable  law  of  nature 
in  dealing  with  plant  and  animal,  and  savage  man, 
and  primitive  races  of  men.  Though  severe,  it 
cannot  be  called  unjust  or  cruel ;  because  the  ends 
which  evolution  is  accomplishing  could  not  be  had 
on  easier  terms.  As  Mr.  Wallace  says,  "  This 
struggle  for  existence  really  brings  about  the 
maximum  of  life  and  the  enjoyment  of  life  with 
the  minimum  of  suffering  and  pain." 

As  we  pass  from  the  conscious  animal  up  to 
self-conscious  man  the  tragic  struggle  deepens. 
Under  civilized  conditions  it  becomes  not  so  much 
a  struggle  between  individuals  as  between  ideals. 
Yet  the  essential  features  of  the  process  are  the 
same.     Good  conduct  at  any  given  time  is  conduct 


THEOLOGICAL  43 

which  adjusts  man  to  his  social  environment.  But 
the  social  like  the  natural  environment  is  in  a  slow 
but  constant  process  of  change. 

"  New  occasions  teach  new  duties  : 
Time  makes  ancient  good  uncouth.11 

The  moment  you  secure  a  perfect  adjustment,  it 
becomes  imperfect  ;  because  the  social  order  to 
which  the  original  adjustment  was  made  has 
changed,  and  what  perfectly  fitted  the  old  order  for 
that  very  reason  imperfectly  fits  the  new.  Hence 
every  moral  and  social  advance  has  to  fight  its  way 
not  merely  against  the  bad  who  oppose  all  order, 
but  against  the  traditionally  good,  who  believe  that 
the  social  order  is  constant,  and  that  what  has  been 
the  ideal  adjustment  in  the  past  must  remain  the 
ideal  of  conduct  for  all  time.  These  conscientious 
but  short-sighted  conservatives  are  always  more 
bitter  and  powerful  opponents  of  the  new  ideal 
than  the  unprincipled  rabble.  The  worst  enemy 
of  the<better  is  the  good.  It  was  the  constituted 
authorities,  the  conservative  aristocracy  of  Athens, 
not  the  lawless  and  irreligious  masses,  who  con- 
demned Socrates  to  drink  the  hemlock.  It  was 
the  scribes  and  Pharisees  and  the  chief  priests 
and  the  principal  men  of  Jerusalem  who  crucified 
Jesus. 


44 


SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 


Out  of  this  perpetual  change,  which  is  the  very 
essence  of  that  process  of  evolution  through  which 
the  world  is  passing,  is  born  the  struggle  between 
the  imperfect  reality  and  the  perfect  ideal. 

This  conflict  always  manifests  itself  in  a  lower 
and  a  higher  form.  In  the  lower  form  it  is  the 
conflict  between  individuals  who  represent  the 
uneliminated  appetites  and  passions  which  were 
essential  to  an  earlier  stage  of  development,  but 
which  have  been  relatively  outgrown  by  the  pres- 
ent stage  of  civilization,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the 
law,  which  affirms  the  demand  of  the  existing 
society,  on  the  other.  This  is  the  simple  conflict 
between  good  and  bad  as  we  ordinarily  see  it.  A 
man  wants  to  be  as  lustful  and  brutal  as  he  was  per- 
mitted and  perhaps  even  encouraged  to  be  in  primi- 
tive savage  conditions  ;  but  the  law  declares  that 
such  conduct  is  inconsistent  with  the  welfare  of 
the  more  advanced  society  of  which  he  is  a  mem- 
ber ;  and  punishes  him  if  he  violates  the  higher 
requirements  of  this  more  advanced  social  order. 
Here  we  see  the  imperfect  standards  of  an  out- 
grown past  in  collision  with  the  more  perfect 
standards  of  the  actual  present.  The  individual 
is  behind  society  ;  and  society  is  trying  to  drag 
him  ahead. 

The  higher  form  of  this  struggle  comes  between 


theological  45 

the  law  as  the  representative  of  the  existing 
order;  or  rather  of  the  order  which  existed  when 
the  law  was  framed  ;  and  the  individuals  vyho  see 
the  vision  of  the  better  order  that  is  about  to 
be,  and  demand  institutions,  customs,  standards, 
duties,  liberties  large  enough  to  meet  the  require- 
ments of  the  social  order  that  has  come  into  being 
since  the  law  was  made,  or  stands  ready  to  come 
as  soon  as  the  hard  crust  of  the  old  order  can  be 
broken  so  as  to  give  the  new  life  room.  Here 
society  is  behind  the  individual,  and  is  trying  to 
hold  him  back.  Thus  the  average  good  man  is 
equally  at  war  with  the  bad  man  who  is  below  him 
and  the  progressively  good  man  who  is  above  him. 
The  reformer  and  the  criminal  are  about  equally 
obnoxious  to  the  man  of  average  goodness  and 
intelligence.  The  prophets  and  the  betrayers  of 
their  country  are  equally  odious  and  promiscuously 
stoned.  The  Saviour  is  crucified  between  two 
thieves. 

The  case  of  the  bad  man,  the  problem  of  sin, 
will  be  considered  later.  The  progressively  good 
man  requires  interpretation. 

Mr.  Benjamin  Kidd,  in  his  Social  Evolution,  has 
brought  out  with  great  clearness  and  force  the 
antagonism  between  the  interests  of  the  social 
organism  and  the  interests  of  its  individual  mem- 


46  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

bers  ;  and  has  gone  so  far  as  to  assert  that  we 
never  can  find  "any  universal  rational  sanction  for 
individual  conduct  in  a  progressive  society."  He 
recognizes  indeed  that  such  sacrifice  of  individual 
to  social  interests  is  the  most  persistent  fact  of 
history ;  but  he  explains  such  conduct  by  the 
"ultra-rational  sanction"  of  religion. 

The  question  all  turns  on  what  we  conceive  to 
be  the  essential  nature  of  man.  Is  he  essentially 
a  bundle  of  animal  appetites  and  passions,  sup- 
ported for  a  little  while  by  a  framework  of  bone ; 
wrapped  up  for  a  season  in  a  blanket  of  flesh  ; 
lighted  by  a  flickering  candle  of  intelligence,  just 
sufficient  to  show  him  the  objects  by  which  he 
may  gratify  these  animal  appetites  and  passions? 
If  the  appetites  are  the  man  and  intelligence  is 
his  adjunct  and  instrument ;  then  indeed  the  an- 
tagonism between  such  an  individual  and  society  is, 
as  Mr.  Kidd  tells  us,  hopeless  and  irreconcilable  ; 
and  the  only  hope  of  getting  social  conduct  out  of 
him  is  some  "  ultra-rational  sanction  "  which  shall 
startle  him  into  a  wholesome  fear  of  penalties, 
or  shock  him  into  a  prudent  concern  for  his  fate 
in  the  hereafter. 

Such  an  abstract  individual  ;  such  an  animal 
in  human  form,  however,  nowhere  exists.  It  is 
a  fiction   of   the    imagination,    to    which    no   real 


THEOLOGICAL  47 

being  corresponds.  Units  Jiomo,  niillns  Jwmo. 
One  man  alone  is  no  man  at  all.  The  very 
essence  of  man  is  determined  by  his  relations  to 
other  men  and  things,  and  ultimately  to  the 
Absolute  Ground  of  all  relationships.  And  reason 
is  the  consciousness  of  these  relations  ;  and  in- 
volves in  latent  form  at  least  the  reverent  recogni- 
tion of  that  ultimate  relation.  Reason  is  the 
man ;  and  the  physical  nature,  with  its  appe- 
tites and  passions,  is  indeed  the  essential  instru- 
ment and  support  of  the  man,  but  not  his  essential 
nature.  If  reason  and  appetite  come  into  conflict, 
as  to  some  extent  they  perpetually  do,  the  man 
who  will  realize  his  essential  self  must  sacrifice, 
not  his  reason  to  his  appetite,  but  his  appetite  to 
his  reason.  For  this  is  the  better  part.  Reason 
is  not,  as  Mr.  Kidd  represents  it,  "the  most  pro- 
foundly individualistic,  anti-social,  anti-evolution- 
ary, and  disintegrating  of  all  human  qualities." 
Reason  is  the  common  bond  that  binds  mankind 
together.  The  service  of  society  is  not,  as  Mr. 
Kidd  assumes,  the  sacrifice  of  the  individual :  it  is 
his  gratification  and  realization.  Though  labour 
leaders  and  socialistic  agitators  usually  appeal  to 
selfishness,  yet  it  is  not  the  selfishness  of  the 
working  men  ;  it  is  their  nobleness,  their  fidelity 
to  what  they  believe  to  be  a  principle,  their  loyalty 


48  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

to  their  order  or  union  or  class,  which  responds  to 
these  appeals,  and  gives  to  strikes  and  labour 
movements  whatever  strength  they  have.  It  is  not 
individualism  but  a  new  manifestation  of  the  social 
spirit  that  is  blindly  struggling  for  expression  in 
the  labour  movements  of  our  day. 

Now  the  good  man,  whether  he  is  the  man  of 
average  virtue  who  sacrifices  his  private  gratifica- 
tion in  obedience  to  the  law  ;  or  whether  he  is  the 
leader  and  reformer  who  sacrifices  the  good  esteem 
of  his  fellows  and  the  commendation  of  the  exist- 
ing society  to  promote  that  better  adjustment  of 
men  and  society  to  each  other  which  is  the  condi- 
tion of  progress;  — the  good  man  in  either  case 
is  simply  the  man  who  sees  a  larger  sphere  of  rea- 
son than  the  bad  man  ;  who  recognizes  that  this 
larger  reason  is  the  expression  of  his  own  true 
nature  and  his  better  self ;  and  who  faithfully  iden- 
tifies himself  with  the  cause  of  that  larger  reason 
wherein  he  sees  revealed  the  fuller  possibilities  of 
his  own  rational  nature. 

If  he  sees  merely  a  little  fragment  of  the  larger 
truth,  and  takes  that  for  the  whole,  and  regards 
it  as  ultimate,  as,  for  example,  was  the  case  with 
some  of  the  anti-slavery  agitators,  and  is  the  case 
with  a  good  many  temperance  reformers  to-day ; 
then  he  is  merely  a  moral  reformer :  and  probably 


THEOLOGICAL  49 

as  he  grows  older  he  will  grow  narrower  and 
harder,  and  ultimately  become  one  of  the  most 
hide-bound  of  obstructionists.  He  has  merely  set 
one  finite  bit  of  truth  over  against  another  finite 
bit  of  truth  ;  the  fact  that  his  bit  is  a  little  bigger 
than  the  bit  which  he  opposes  makes  him  a  use- 
ful man  as  long  as  the  fight  is  along  that  particular 
line  ;  but  invariably  leaves  him  a  conceited,  soured, 
impracticable,  and  useless  man  after  that  particular 
issue  is  settled. 

If  the  good  man,  whether  of  one  type  or  the 
other,  for  both  are  essentially  the  same,  sees  the 
social  interest  for  which  he  sacrifices  his  private 
gratification,  as  part  of  an  infinite  whole ;  if  he 
sees  the  society  of  which  he  is  a  member,  or  the 
social  order  he  is  trying  to  introduce,  as  a  stage 
in  the  one  continuous  process  by  which  men  are 
becoming  at  the  same  time  more  perfect  in  them- 
selves and  more  perfectly  adjusted  to  each  other; 
then  he  is  a  religious  man,  and  the  victory  over 
one  private  appetite,  or  the  triumph  over  one  pub- 
lic wrong,  will  make  him  the  more  eager  and  stren- 
uous to  attack  a  new  abuse  and  respond  to  a  new 
duty.  Not  until  we  get  beyond  this  or  that  par- 
ticular application  of  moral  and  spiritual  law  to  the 
universal  principle  of  love  which  is  the  foundation 
and  fulfilment  of  the  law,  not  until  we  reach  the 


50  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

standpoint  of  Jesus,  do  we  reach  the  ultimate  relig- 
ious relation  of  perfect  sonship  to  God.  Morality 
makes  a  whole  of  a  small  part.  Religion  makes 
the  part  a  member  of  the  great  whole.  Religion 
is  essentially  social ;  and  sonship  to  God  and  social 
service  are  related  to  each  other  as  the  emotional 
and  the  practical  aspects  of  the  same  thing.  Un- 
selfish service  of  the  social  order  by  the  individual 
member  is  a  filial  act.  It  is  a  revelation  of  the 
sonship  of  man  to  God. 

What  then  is  sonship  ?  Who  is  the  Son  of 
God  ?  The  Son  of  God  is  he  who,  in  the  cramp- 
ing limitations  of  space,  under  the  evanescent 
form  of  time,  with  the  finite  instrument  of  flesh, 
and  with  the  partial  knowledge  which  is  conditioned 
by  a  particular  human  brain,  still  sees  nature  as 
the  expression  of  an  omniscient  Mind ;  beholds 
human  society  as  the  unfolding  of  one  universal 
Will ;  recognizes  every  man  as  the  potential  re- 
production of  the  thought  and  will  of  the  Father  ; 
accepts  every  duty  and  relationship  of  life  as  an 
opportunity  to  do  the  will  of  the  Father,  and  to 
bring  men  to  the  consciousness  of  their  sonship  to 
God  and  their  brotherhood  with  each  other.  Son- 
ship  consists  in  the  perception  of  the  Divine  Ideal 
in.  every  concrete  situation;  and  the  striving  to 
realize  that  ideal  even  in  the  most  unideal  condi- 


THEOLOGICAL 


51 


tions.  It  means  the  healing  of  the  sick  ;  the  com- 
forting of  those  in  sorrow;  the  relief  of  the  poor; 
the  instruction  of  the  ignorant ;  the  reproof  of  the 
wayward  ;  the  exposure  of  the  hypocrite ;  the  over- 
throw of  the  extortioner ;  the  forgiveness  of  the 
penitent ;  the  encouragement  of  the  weak ;  the 
succour  of  the  tempted ;  the  emancipation  of 
the  prisoner ;  the  solace  of  mourners  at  the 
funeral ;  the  blessing  of  little  children  ;  the  pro- 
vision for  the  necessities  of  old  age  ;  the  imparting 
of  courage  to  do  the  work  of  life  and  serenity  to 
meet  the  hour  of  death ;  the  utterance  of  truth 
even  when  it  is  most  unwelcome  ;  and  the  doing 
of  duty  even  at  the  cost  of  life  itself.  It  is 
the  filling  of  the  finite  with  its  infinite  signifi- 
cance ;  it  is  the  fulfilment  of  relations  in  the 
light  of  their  absolute  ground  ;  it  is  the  treatment 
of  men  in  the  light  of  their  common  sonship  to  the 
Father  ;  it  is  the  doing  of  duty  as  the  reasonable 
requirement  of  God. 

Such  is  our  a  priori  conception  of  what  the  Son 
of  God  would  be,  were  he  to  come  into  the  world. 
Revelation  of  this  sonship  has  been  progressive. 
The  lawgiver  and  the  prophet  have  stood  a  little  in 
advance  of  their  times,  and  in  the  name  of  the 
eternal  reason  and  righteousness  have  beckoned 
their  followers  step  by  step  toward  juster  institu- 


52  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

tions  and  more  humane  ideals.  Sons  of  God  they 
all  have  been  to  whom  the  word  of  God  has  come, 
in  so  far  as  they  have  been  conscious  that  the 
institutions  and  standards  they  have  set  up  have 
been  grounded  in  an  eternal  process  of  develop- 
ment through  which  the  universal  will  of  God  is 
being  unfolded  in  time  and  expressed  in  humanity. 
Yet  even  the  prophet,  though  he  recognizes  the 
larger  reason  of  which  his  message  is  a  partial 
declaration,  in  so  far  as  he  fails  to  catch  the  spirit 
and  grasp  the  principle  of  the  deeper  reason  and 
the  larger  life,  remains  only  half  emancipated  ;  a 
servant  rather  than  a  fully  conscious  son.  The 
prophet  is  great ;  but  not  the  greatest.  As  Jesus 
said  of  John  the  Baptist,  the  burning  prophet 
who  at  the  cost  of  his  life  proclaimed  cer- 
tain fundamental  duties  in  the  face  of  oppres- 
sive power  and  in  the  hearing  of  guilty  ears, 
"  Among  them  that  are  born  of  women  there  is 
none  greater  than  John  :  yet  he  that  is  but  little 
in  the  kingdom  of  God  is  greater  than  he." 
Is  this  conception  realized  ?  Is  there  a  historic 
person  who  corresponds  to  this  definition  ?  After 
all  the  ages  of  imperfection  and  laborious  prog- 
ress, has  the  Perfect  come  ?  Has  the  Son  of  God 
appeared  ? 

The   consensus   of   the    competent    in    spiritual 


THEOLOGICAL  53 

things  has  been  almost  unanimous  in  ascribing 
this  title  to  Jesus  of  Nazareth.  Not  always  on 
the  wisest  grounds  ;  not  always  with  the  deepest 
insight ;  not  always  with  the  clearest  conceptions 
of  the  consequences  which  ought  to  follow  such  a 
confession  ;  the  world  has  accepted  him  as  the 
Son  of  God,  the  incarnation  of  the  Divine  Truth 
and  the  revelation  of  the  Father's  love. 

The  a  priori  conception  of  what  a  Son  of  God 
should  be  and  the  Gospel  account  of  Jesus  of  Naz- 
areth exactly  coincide.  Even  if  it  is  urged  that 
the  Gospel  narrative  is  itself  an  idealized  por- 
trayal, that  does  not  destroy  its  force.  Every 
account  of  a  historical  character,  by  the  elimina- 
tion of  irrelevant  detail,  by  the  emphasis  upon 
leading  traits,  by  the  sacrifice  of  the  insignificant 
and  trivial  to  the  essential  and  the  significant,  is 
and  must  be  an  idealization.  But  the  fundamental 
outlines,  even  of  an  ideal  representation,  must  be 
real.  No  other  character  ever  lived  of  whose 
teaching  and  life  we  know  so  much,  who  could 
stand  such  an  idealization  without  making  the  in- 
congruity of  the  real  and  the  ideal  manifest.  And  if 
it  is  urged  that  the  Gospel  of  John  is  drawn  from 
a  contemplation  of  the  ideal  Son  rather  than  from 
acquaintance  with  the  historic  Jesus,  still  the  fact 
that  the  plain  story  of  the  Synoptics  and  the  ideal 


54  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

representation  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  fit  so  well 
together  is  the  strongest  possible  proof  that  in 
Christ  we  have  the  union  of  the  ideal  and  the  real, 
the  eternal  and  the  historic,  God  and  man. 

Jesus  was  tested  at  all  the  vital  points.  The 
lust  of  the  flesh,  the  fascination  of  power,  the 
pride  of  life,  all  presented  themselves  to  his  youth- 
ful ambition.  And  he  met  them  all,  not  with  the 
greater  pride  of  self-sufficient  virtue,  but  with  the 
filial  humility  of  one  conscious  of  the  Father 
whose  commandment  he  was  to  obey  and  whose 
will  he  was  to  do.  "Man  shall  not  live  by  bread 
alone,  but  by  every  word  that  proceedeth  out  of 
the  mouth  of  God."  "Thou  shalt  worship  the 
Lord  thy  God,  and  him  only  shalt  thou  serve." 

The  appeal  of  innocent  childhood,  the  claim  of 
sickness,  the  necessities  of  the  poor,  the  misery 
of  the  social  outcast,  the  sadder  tale  of  guilt  and 
shame,  all  were  presented  to  him  ;  and  he  met 
them  all  with  that  tenderness  and  helpfulness  and 
sympathy  and  forgiveness  which  a  human  father 
bestows  upon  his  child,  and  which  he  declared 
the  Heavenly  Father  bestows  on  all  his  children. 

On  the  other  hand,  he  met  hypocrisy  with  expos- 
ure, crafty  questions  with  more  crafty  refutations. 
He  pricked  the  bubble  of  conceit  and  laid  bare  the 
hideous  features  of  pride  wherever  he  found  them. 


THEOLOGICAL  55 

He  held  fast  to  the  nothingness  of  all  that  is  not 
rooted  and  grounded  in  God.  "  Every  plant  which 
my  heavenly  Father  planted  not  shall  be  rooted 
up."  He  refused  to  act  from  motives  of  personal 
prudence  ;  rejecting  such  counsel  with  the  words, 
"  Get  thee  behind  me,  Satan  :  for  thou  art  a  stum- 
blingblock  unto  me :  for  thou  mindest  not  the 
things  of  God,  but  the  things  of  men."  He  based 
all  greatness  on  humility  and  service,  and  taught 
that  the  standard  of  forgiveness  is  not  finite  en- 
durance but  infinite  love.  "  Whosoever  shall 
humble  himself  as  this  little  child,  the  same  is 
the  greatest  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven."  "I  say 
not  unto  thee,  Until  seven  times ;  but,  Until 
seventy  times  seven." 

He  scorned  flattery ;  had  none  of  that  self- 
conscious  goodness  to  which  flattery  appeals,  and 
which  we  all  despise.  A  young  man  once  tried  it. 
He  came  and  kneeled  to  him  and  called  him  good. 
Jesus  promptly  asked  him,  "  Why  do  you  call  me 
'  good '  ?  There  is  only  one  who  is  good,  that  is 
God."  This  passage  has  puzzled  the  commenta- 
tors, intent  on  making  out  for  Jesus  an  artificial 
and  ready-made  divinity.  But  rightly  understood, 
it  reveals  the  simplicity  and  modesty  and  genu- 
ineness of  Jesus'  character  as  no  other  text  in 
Scripture  does ;  and  lifts  him  clear  up  out  of   the 


56  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

level  of  ordinary  human  virtue  with  its  pride  and 
conceit  and  self-consciousness  onto  the  divine  level 
of  a  love  that  is  so  devoted  to  its  object  and  its 
work  that  it  does  not  stop  to  think  of  self  at  all. 

The  way  to  become  conscious  of  one's  own 
personal  goodness,  and  to  impress  the  sense  of  it 
upon  others,  had  been  reduced  to  a  very  elaborate 
system  in  Jesus'  day.  The  Pharisees  were  mas- 
ters of  this  precious  and  proper  and  precise  good- 
ness, which  knows  just  how  good  it  is  and  how  it 
came  to  be  so  :  and  Jesus  treated  the  whole 
miserable  business  with  contempt ;  telling  his 
disciples  that  if  they  could  not  develop  a  better 
type  of  piety  than  that,  he  had  no  use  for  them. 

Jesus  took  for  his  task  nothing  less  than  the 
gigantic  work  of  stripping  religion  of  all  its  coun- 
terfeits and  superfluities ;  of  teaching  each  indi- 
vidual to  revere  and  love  the  Author  of  his  being 
as  his  Father  and  his  Friend ;  of  training  each 
individual  to  regard  every  other  person  as  his 
brother,  with  rights  to  be  respected  and  interests 
to  be  served  as  generously  and  faithfully  as  if 
they  were  one's  own.  Thus  he  made  the  service 
of  God  so  simple  and  so  real  that  a  child  might 
be  sure  of  the  heavenly  Father's  favour  as  often 
as  he  tried  to  do  right  and  was  sorry  for  having 
done  wrong,  and  the  life  of  man  so  noble  and  so 


THEOLOGICAL  57 

sweet  that  even  the  humblest  might  share  its 
highest  privileges  and  holiest  joys.  He  believed 
in  a  living  God,  now  working  in  the  world  ;  and 
he  accepted  it  as  his  mission  to  work  with  him. 
"  My  Father  worketh  even  until  now,  and  I 
work.  We  must  work  the  work  of  him  that  sent 
me,  while  it  is  day  ;  the  night  cometh  when  no 
man  can  work." 

He  was  the  friend  of  publicans  and  sinners  ; 
measuring  his  service  not  by  the  deserts  but  by 
the  needs  of  his  fellows  ;  following  the  example 
of  the  Father  who  maketh  his  sun  to  rise  on  the 
evil  and  the  good,  and  sendeth  rain  on  the  just 
and  the  unjust.  He  met  opposition  with  deter- 
mination, endured  indignities  with  serenity,  and 
faced  death  with  courage.  When  told  that  Herod 
desired  to  kill  him  and  advised  to  "get  out  and 
go  hence,"  he  replied,  "Go  and  say  to  that  fox, 
Behold  I  cast  out  devils  and  perform  cures  to-day 
and  to-morrow;  and  the  third  day  I  am  perfected. 
Howbeit  I  must  go  on  my  way  to-day  and  to- 
morrow and  the  day  following." 

He  would  have  no  compromise  with  fraud  and 
wrong.  He  found  the  temple  service  formal, 
mercenary,  extortionate.  It  was  in  the  hands 
of  a  pontifical  clique,  an  ecclesiastical  ring, 
that    had    elaborated    an    expensive    ritual,    and 


58  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

then  formed  a  monopoly  in  the  means  for  its 
observance.  Out  of  the  charges,  commissions, 
and  brokerage  incidental  to  this  worship  they 
were  making  a  luxurious  living  for  themselves. 
By  this  manipulation  of  public  worship  for  private 
profit  the  chief-priests  and  their  confederates 
had  acquired  wealth,  and  the  power  and  influ- 
ence wealth  knows  how  to  buy. 

This  whole  system  was  the  exact  opposite  of 
that  immediate  trust  in  a  loving  Father  which 
Jesus  felt  in  his  own  heart,  and  was  striving  to 
impart  to  men.  Conflict  was  inevitable ;  and 
Jesus  saw  clearly  what  would  be  the  outcome. 
On  the  one  side  was  venerated  custom,  sacred 
precedent,  established  authority,  and  all  the  ma- 
chinery to  make  authority  effective,  intrenched 
in  the  temple  at  the  nation's  capital.  On  the 
other  hand  he  stood  alone,  with  his  little  band 
of  half-trained  pupils  from  an  obscure  and  de- 
spised province.  And  yet,  knowing  perfectly 
well  that  attack  on  the  party  in  power  meant 
death  to  himself,  what  did  he  do  ?  "  And  he 
found  in  the  temple  those  that  sold  oxen  and 
sheep  and  doves,  and  the  changers  of  money, 
sitting ;  and  he  made  a  scourge  of  cords,  and 
cast  all  out  of  the  temple,  both  the  sheep  and 
the    oxen  ;    and    he    poured    out    the    changers' 


THEOLOGICAL  59 

money,  and  overthrew  their  tables  ;  and  to  them 
that  sold  doves  he  said,  Take  these  things 
hence  ;  make  not  my  Father's  house  a  house  of 
merchandise." 

We  know  the  consequence.  We  know  how  he 
refused  to  demean  himself  before  the  Roman 
Procurator,  to  save  his  life  ;  how  almost  with 
his  last  breath  he  made  thoughtful  provision 
for  his  mother  in  the  home  of  his  best  friend  ; 
and  died  pitying  the  ignorance  and  praying  for 
the  forgiveness  of  his  murderers. 

Make  your  conception  of  what  the  Son  of  God 
should  be  as  high  as  you  please.  Put  into  it  all 
you  have  known  or  can  conceive  of  righteousness, 
and  love,  and  truth,  and  tenderness,  and  constancy, 
and  courage  ;  and  you  cannot  put  into  it  a  single 
trait  of  moral  character,  a  single  quality  of  spiritual 
grace,  a  single  principle  of  social  service  which  has 
not  its  counterpart  and  its  embodiment  in  the 
Gospel  story  of  Jesus'  life  and  death. 

He  did  the  grandest  work  ever  conceived  by 
man ;  he  did  it  in  the  spirit  of  gentleness  and 
tenderness  to  all  whom  he  could  help  and  bless ; 
he  did  it  in  defiance  of  all  that  corrupt  influence 
and  unscrupulous  power  could  bring  against  him  ; 
he  did  it  in  the  serene  certainty  that  it  would 
cost  his  life. 


60  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

If  the  doing  of  beneficent  work  with  constancy 
and  courage,  in  kindness  and  in  love  ;  if  the  stren- 
uous resistance  of  unrighteous  power,  even  unto 
blood  ;  if  the  faithful  witness  to  the  truth  in  the 
face  of  hypocrisy,  and  fidelity  to  duty  in  the  hour 
of  death  ;  —  if  these  are  our  conceptions  of  how 
God  would  manifest  himself  in  human  history  if 
he  were  to  manifest  himself  at  all  ;  then  Jesus 
has  the  obvious  right  to  be  accepted  and  wor- 
shipped as  the  Son  of  God  ;  the  authentic  revela- 
tion and  perfect  incarnation  of  the  divine  in 
human  history  and  human  form. 

This  title,  Son  of  God,  was  not  the  one  which 
Jesus  gave  himself.  In  the  Synoptic  Gospels  he 
does  not  use  it  once,  although  he  speaks  of  him- 
self as  the  Son  of  Man  sixty-nine  times.  It  is  a 
title  which  his  life  and  character  drew  forth  from 
those  who  witnessed  it  and  undertook  to  interpret 
it.  "Truly,"  says  the  centurion,  "this  was  the 
Son  of  God."  So  says  the  Fourth  Gospel,  in  its 
attempt  to  give  the  historic  person  his  ideal  and 
eternal  setting.  So  has  replied  the  faith  of  eighteen 
centuries. 

The  perfection  of  humanity  is  the  revelation  of 
divinity.  Christ  is  the  fulness  of  the  Godhead 
bodily  :  all  of  the  divine  nature  and  spirit  that  can 
be  manifested  in  human  form.      Christ  is  the  God- 


THEOLOGICAL  6j 

man.  He  reveals  at  the  same  time  how  human  is 
the  heart  of  God,  and  how  divine  may  be  the  life 
of  man.  His  divinity  is  not  a  remote  inference 
from  the  fulfilment  of  prediction  and  the  exhibi- 
tion of  signs  and  wonders.  It  is  the  manifesta- 
tion of  those  moral  virtues  and  spiritual  graces  ; 
it  is  the  exemplification  of  those  social  principles 
and  ethical  laws  which  we  all  recognize  as  the 
principles  on  which  the  world  is  founded  and  the 
laws  on  which  society  must  rest.  In  revealing 
the  ideal  or  end  toward  which  humanity  is  pro- 
gressing, and  in  which  society  will  find  its  ultimate 
realization,  he  at  the  same  time  reveals  the  divine 
purpose  which  was  in  the  beginning,  by  which  and 
for  which  the  world  was  created.  What  is  last  in 
the  order  of  time  is  first  in  the  order  of  thought. 
That  the  Son  realizes  the  purpose  of  the  Father  in 
the  process  of  time,  shows  that  he  was  with  the 
Father  in  the  beginning. 

As  the  whole  life  and  activity  of  the  Son  would 
be  inexplicable  without  the  Father,  whose  will  the 
Son  does,  and  whose  messenger  he  is,  so  the 
Father  would  not  be  a  social  and  spiritual  being, 
that  is  he  would  not  be  a  person,  without  the 
eternal  Son,  or  Logos,  in  whom  to  take  delight, 
through  whom  to  express  his  purpose,  and  in 
whom    to    find    that    relationship    of    self    to    not 


62  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

self,  without  which  personality  is  but  an  empty 
shadow. 

When  we  spoke  of  the  Absolute  as  our  Father 
in  the  last  chapter,  it  was  hardly  warranted  by 
the  stage  of  development  our  thought  had  there 
reached.  It  was  an  anticipation  ;  though  an  an- 
ticipation which  the  ancient  world  had  made  before 
Christ  came.  That  God  is  our  Father  we  might 
discover  by  reflecting  on  our  own  dependence  and 
relativity.  What  God  is,  what  fatherhood  means, 
we  can  only  know  through  the  perfect  embodiment 
of  his  loving  will  in  the  person  of  his  well-beloved 
Son.  "  No  man  hath  seen  God  at  any  time  ;  the 
only  begotten  Son,  which  is  in  the  bosom  of  the 
Father,  he  hath  declared  him." 

By  virtue  of  his  perfect  obedience  Christ  is  God 
in  humanity.  He  is  the  Mediator  between  God 
and  man.  He  that  hath  seen  me,  hath  seen  the 
Father.  He  that  receiveth  me,  receiveth  him 
that  sent  me.  No  man  cometh  unto  the  Father 
but  by  me.  My  Father  and  I  are  one.  Things 
equal  to  the  same  thing  are  equal  to  each 
other.  Lines  parallel  to  the  same  straight  line 
are  parallel  to  each  other.  Contact  with  a  good 
conductor  of  the  electric  current  is  equivalent 
to  contact  with  the  battery  which  generates 
the  current.      Learning  from  the  perfectly  intelli- 


THEOLOGICAL  63 

gent  and  sympathetic  and  competent  pupil  is 
equivalent  to  learning  from  the  original  teacher. 
All  we  know  of  the  spiritual  nature  of  God  comes 
to  us  in  its  complete  form  and  in  its  ultimate 
principle  in  the  person  of  Jesus  Christ. 

The  attempt  to  approach  God  apart  from 
Christ,  to  conceive  God  otherwise  than  through 
the  expression  he  has  made  of  himself  in  Christ, 
involves  either  an  impoverishment  and  indefi- 
niteness  in  the  conception  of  God ;  or  else  it 
involves  the  ascription  to  him  of  attributes 
which  Christ  revealed,  without  acknowledging 
the  medium  through  which  the  revelation  came. 
The  former  course  is  intellectually  more  con- 
sistent ;  but  it  is  spiritually  fatal.  After  a  gen- 
eration or  two  this  tendency  fades  out  into 
mysticism,  evaporates  into  pantheism,  or  shrivels 
up  into  hard,  dry  rationalism.  The  latter  ten- 
dency is  intellectually  inconsistent ;  but  it  explains 
the  fact  that  some  of  the  most  devout  and  earnest 
Christians  of  the  present  day  are  to  be  found 
among  those  who  have  dropped  from  their  formal 
creed  the  doctrine  of  the  divinity  of  Christ. 

The  Unitarian  objection  to  the  doctrine  of  the 
divinity  of  Christ  is  forcibly  stated  in  the  fol- 
lowing passage  from  a  sermon  by  the  Rev.  J.  T. 
Sunderland,  on  the  subject,  "Was  Jesus  God  ?  " 


64  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

"  A  God  pinched  and  compressed  into  the  limit 
of  our  finite  humanity,  becomes  thereby  of  neces- 
sity a  very  meagre  and  small  God.  Jesus,  born  as 
a  babe,  and  in  a  few  years  dying  ;  during  his  boy- 
hood growing  in  knowledge  as  you  and  I  do  ;  after 
he  was  a  man  sometimes  disappointed  ;  trying  to 
accomplish  ends,  and  again  and  again  failing  be- 
cause of  opposition ;  declaring  that  there  were 
some  things  that  he  did  not  know;  —  furnishes  a 
picture  of  a  God  so  meagre,  so  inadequate,  so  like 
the  little  gods  that  the  heathen  believe  in,  that 
we  instinctively  push  it  aside,  and  demand  for  our 
worship  something  infinitely  higher  and  larger  — 
lifted  wholly  out  of  the  category  of  this  finiteness." 

At  first  sight  this  line  of  objection  seems  irrefut- 
able. It  seems  to  reduce  the  belief  in  the  divinity 
of  Christ  to  the  most  absurd  product  of  childish 
credulity.  Apparently,  the  believers  in  the  divin- 
ity of  Christ  are  guilty  of  imposing  on  God  the 
most  cramping  and  confining  of  limitations. 

In  reality,  the  objector  himself  is  subjecting  the 
conception  of  God  to  the  most  serious  and  fatal  of 
all  limitations.  He  is  denying  to  God  the  power 
of  appearing  in  finite  form  ;  of  revealing  himself 
in  terms  of  humanity.  A  God  thus  incapable 
of  self-revelation  would  be  the  most  impotent  and 
useless  being  conceivable.      He  would  be  no  God 


THEOLOGICAL  65 

at  all.  He  would  be  merely  the  unknowable 
abstraction  of  agnosticism.  We  have  no  predi- 
cates, save  such  as  we  draw  from  our  finite 
experience.  God  must  be  known  in  terms  of 
nature  and  humanity,  or  else  he  cannot  be 
known  at  all.  As  Professor  Andrew  Seth  has 
said,  "  We  speak  most  truly,  and  most  in  accord- 
ance with  the  real  nature  of  things,  when  we 
characterize  the  Absolute  in  terms  of  the  best  we 
know."  Jesus  Christ  is  the  best  we  know  or  can 
conceive  of  moral  and  spiritual  excellence.  There- 
fore, either  Christ  must  be  the  revelation  and 
incarnation  of  God  to  us,  or  else  God  will  be  to 
our  thinking  a  mere  name;  and  his  attributes 
will  all  resolve  themselves  into  sesquipedalian 
negations. 

The  true  Infinite  does  not  dwell  remote  and 
inaccessible,  in  some  immaterial  realm  of  pure 
ideas,  like  that  with  which  Plato  endeavoured  to 
solve  the  problem  of  the  rationality  of  the  universe. 
Goethe  is  right  when  he  says,  "Wer  grosses 
will  muss  sich  beschranken  konnen."  Greatness 
depends  on  definiteness  and  limitation.  As  Goethe 
says  again : 

"Willst  du  ins  Unendliche  schreiten, 
Geh  run-  im  Endlichen  nach  alien  Seiten." 

The  only  Infinite  we  can  conceive  is  to  be  found  in 


66  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

the  symmetrical  fulfilment  of  finite  relationships. 
We  seem  to  be  paying  the  highest  compliments 
to  God  when  we  try  to  "lift  him  wholly  out  of  the 
category  of  this  finiteness."  The  difficulty  is  that 
when  we  have  gone  through  the  list  of  these  doubt- 
ful and  negative  compliments,  there  remains  nothing 
definite,  or  conceivable,  or  knowable,  or  lovable,  or 
worshipful,  to  which  our  thought  and  devotion  and 
worship  can  direct  itself.  In  our  excessive  polite- 
ness we  have  bowed  our  God  out  of  the  universe. 
In  denying  him  the  possibility  of  manifestation  in 
the  limitations  and  finitude  of  humanity,  we  have 
reduced  our  conception  of  him  to  that  abstract 
being  which  is  the  same  thing  as  nothing. 

Unitarianism  has  been  of  immense  service  as 
a  critic  of  the  extravagances  and  excrescences  of 
orthodox  tradition.  In  performing  this  service  it 
has,  in  great  measure,  made  the  fatal  mistake  of 
accepting  the  deistic  conception  of  God.  Unita- 
rianism has  helped  to  save  others :  itself  it  cannot 
save.  Between  acceptance  of  the  incarnation 
and  agnosticism  there  are  several  way-stations 
where  the  practical  worker  may  tarry  and  the 
devout  spirit  may  rest.  But  between  these  two 
positions  there  is  no  permanent  and  enduring 
philosophical  foundation  on  which  one  can  rear 
a  consistent  and  positive  conception  of  a  personal 


THEOLOGICAL  67 

God.  One  might  as  well  try  to  see  the  sun  by 
closing  his  eyes  to  the  rays  of  light  which  pro- 
ceed from  it  ;  one  might  as  well  try  to  get  at  the 
thought  of  an  author  by  refusing  to  read  the  book 
he  has  written  ;  as  try  to  think  of  God's  spiritual 
nature  in  other  terms  than  those  which  are  ex- 
pressed in  the  personality  of  Christ. 

Belief  in  the  divinity  of  Christ  does  not  rest  on 
such  narratives  as  the  accounts  of  the  "  Gospel  of 
the  Infancy,"  introduced  into  the  opening  chapters 
of  Matthew  and  Luke  ;  and  is  entirely  independent 
of  the  question  whether  we  interpret  these  narra- 
tives as  fact  or  fancy,  poetry  or  prose.  Any  attempt 
to  base  the  belief  in  the  divinity  of  Christ  on  the 
miraculous  is  sure  to  alienate  multitudes  of  honest 
minds  ;  who  will  thus  be  led  to  regard  it  as  simply 
one  among  the  many  deifications  of  saints  and 
heroes  with  which  the  legends  of  antiquity  abound. 

The  greater  portion  of  the  signs  and  wonders 
which  the  Gospel  narrative  attributes  to  Jesus, 
are  much  more  credible  now  than  they  were 
twenty  or  thirty  years  ago.  We  see  that  they 
involve  of  necessity  no  violation  of  law ;  but  sim- 
ply the  introduction  of  higher  forms  of  force. 
The  law  of  gravitation  is  not  violated  when  chemi- 
cal affinity  lifts  up  what  gravitation  tends  to  pull 
down.     The  law  of  chemical  affinity  is  not  violated 


68  SOCIAL   THEOLOGY 

when  the  vital  force  in  the  root-hair  of  a  plant 
breaks  apart  what  chemical  affinity  tends  to  hold 
together.  Physiological  law  is  not  violated  when 
mental  influences  produce  results  the  exact  oppo- 
site of  what  physiological  conditions  alone  tend 
to  produce.  The  phenomena  of  hypnotism  ;  the 
various  forms  of  mental  therapeutics ;  and  many 
other  phenomena  which  psychical  research  is 
bringing  to  light,  render  it  impossible  to  deny 
that  a  unique  personality  might  heal  physical, 
mental,  and  moral  disease,  and  even  appear  after 
death  to  the  sight  of  those  who  had  intensely 
loved  him.  Yet  just  in  proportion  as  the  credi- 
bility of  signs  and  wonders  is  increased,  their 
evidential  value  is  diminished.  The  argument  for 
the  divinity  of  Christ  from  prophecy  and  miracles 
is  absolutely  destitute  of  cogency  for  the  repre- 
sentative modern  mind.  Miracles  are  at  best 
merely  the  scaffolding  or  decoration,  not  the 
foundation  and  substance  of  Christian  faith. 
Ten  times  the  miracles  ascribed  to  Jesus,  sup- 
ported by  ten  times  the  evidence,  would  not  be 
sufficient  to  convince  us  that  Nero  was  the  Son 
of  God. 

The  divinity  of  Christ  is  merely  a  question  of 
the  agreement  of  two  conceptions  :  the  conception 
of  the  spiritual   character  and  will   of   God ;    and 


THEOLOGICAL  69 

the  historic  narrative  of  the  life  and  work  of  Jesus 
Christ.  That  the  Father  is  greater  than  the  Son 
is  evident.  But  that  in  the  moral  and  spiritual 
points  in  which  the  two  can  coincide  they  agree ; 
this  is  all  that  the  believers  in  Christ's  divinity 
affirm.  If  there  is  an  essential  spiritual  attribute 
known  to  us  of  God  which  Jesus  did  not  embody 
in  his  life  and  express  in  his  teaching  ;  if  on  the 
other  hand  there  is  a  single  authentic  trait  or  prac- 
tice in  the  character  and  life  of  Jesus  which  falls 
below  our  ideal  of  divineness  of  character  and  con- 
duct; then,  indeed,  we  shall  have  to  agree  that 
Jesus  is  merely  a  man  like  other  men,  not  only  in 
natural  endowments  but  in  spiritual  attainments. 

If,  however,  these  two  conceptions  coincide  ;  if 
Father  and  Son  are  correlative  terms ;  then  to 
ignore  or  to  deny  the  divinity  and  Sonship  of 
Christ  is  to  deny  God ;  or  at  best  to  substitute  for 
the  concrete  and  personal  revelation  he  has  made 
of  himself  in  history  some  vague  abstraction  of  the 
philosophic  mind.  It  is  to  go  back  to  Paganism 
without  the  charm  of  its  mythology ;  or  to  em- 
brace positivism  with  the  most  precious  fact  in 
history  eliminated,  and  the  most  attractive  per- 
son in  the  race  dethroned.  It  is  to  return  to 
the  vagueness  and  generality  in  which  our  first 
chapter  left  us. 


JO  SOCIAL   THEOLOGY 

The  supra-personal  God  of  philosophic  specula- 
tion will  never  win  the  heart  and  mould  the  will 
of  the  masses  of  mankind  to  the  finer  issues  of 
the  spiritual  life.  He  who  is  to  rule  the  human 
heart  must  be  himself  human  ;  touched  with  the 
feeling  of  our  infirmities  ;  tempted  in  all  points 
like  as  we  are.  Such  a  Lord  and  Master,  such  a 
Son  of  God,  the  world  has  found  in  Jesus  Christ. 
Shall  we  not,  as  Robert  Browning  says : 

"Call  Christ,  then,  the  illimitable  God?11 

"The  very  God!  think,  Abib  ;  dost  thou  think? 
So,  the  All-Great,  were  the  All-Loving  too  — 
So  through  the  thunder  comes  a  human  voice 
Saying,  '  O  heart  I  made,  a  heart  beats  here ! 
Face,  my  hands  fashioned,  see  it  in  myself  ! 
Thou  hast  no  power  nor  may'st  conceive  of  mine, 
But  love  I  gave  thee,  with  myself  to  love, 
And  thou  must  love  me  who  hast  died  for  thee.'" 


CHAPTER    III 

THE    NATURAL    AND    THE    SPIRITUAL  —  THE 
HOLY    SPIRIT 

By  nature  man  is  the  descendant  of  unnumbered 
animal  ancestors,  who  have  been  slowly  trans- 
formed through  successive  eons  of  geological  time. 
Physically  he  is  but  a  slight  relative  modification 
of  the  highest  apes.  Mentally  he  depends  upon 
an  essentially  similar,  though  much  more  complex 
brain  and  nervous  system.  All  his  physical  appe- 
tites and  passions  are  common  to  him  with  the 
lower  animals. 

One  power,  however,  which  they  lack  he  has. 
As  Locke  puts  it,  "  Brutes  abstract  not."  To 
single  out  the  essential  principle  from  its  acci- 
dental embodiment ;  to  deal  with  general  ideas ; 
to  see  things  in  their  relations  to  each  other  as 
distinct  from  their  relations  to  the  individual  per- 
cipient ;  to  become  identified  with  a  wide  range 
of  objective  interests ;  to  transcend  one's  own 
petty  individuality,  and  live  as  a  conscious  mem- 
ber   of    a    social    whole;    this,    as    Romanes    has 

71 


J 2  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

conclusively  shown,  beyond  its  faintest  instinc- 
tive anticipations  is  impossible  to  the  animal 
and  is  the  exclusive  prerogative  of  man. 

Yet,  while  possible  for  man,  this  larger  life  is 
not  natural  ;  in  the  sense  that  it  is  the  course 
toward  which  his  impulses  urge  him.  It  is  not 
the  line  of  least  resistance.  For  reason  in  its 
highest  form  is  a  late  acquisition  of  the  race ; 
while  the  animal  appetites  and  passions  have  tens 
of  thousands  of  years  of  heredity  behind  them  ; 
and  many  of  them  were  the  conditions  of  survival 
by  which  the  race  was  saved  from  extinction  in 
earlier  stages  of  the  struggle  for  existence. 

To  be  sure  there  is  a  second  principle,  which 
Professor  Drummond  calls  the  struggle  for  the  life 
of  others,  developing  side  by  side  with  the  strug- 
gle for  individual  life.  Yet  the  altruistic  or  re- 
productive principle  in  the  animal  is  as  blind 
and  instinctive,  as  little  ethical  and  consciously 
rational,  as  is  the  egoistic  principle.  It  is  ulti- 
mately grounded  in  the  physical  necessity  which 
compels  a  growing  cell  to  divide  in  order  to  secure 
wall-surface  sufficient  for  its  bulk.  And  though 
this  reproductive  principle  is  the  soil  in  which 
the  social  virtues  have  been  nourished,  yet  it  is  so 
far  from  being  sufficient  of  itself  to  support  them 
that  in  man  the  most  selfish  and  cruel  and  loath- 


THEOLOGICAL  73 

some  of  his  vices  spring  from  the  abuse  and 
perversion  of  this  very  function. 

Making  all  due  allowance  for  instinctive  altru- 
ism, and  the  altruistic  anticipations  wrapped  up 
in  reproduction  and  maternity,  the  fact  remains 
that  it  is  natural  for  each  individual  to  look  out 
for  number  one.  Looking  out  for  the  interest 
of  number  one  may,  indeed,  involve  gratifications 
of  appetite,  indulgences  of  passion,  which  benefit 
number  two  and  number  three ;  but  such  inci- 
dental benefits  are  to  be  credited  to  the  benefi- 
cent tendency  of  things  rather  than  to  the  social 
virtue  of  the  individual.  Call  it  with  Darwin 
the  survival  of  tendencies  once  necessary  in  the 
struggle  for  existence,  but  no  longer  so ;  call  it 
with  Kant  the  bad  principle  in  human  nature ; 
call  it  with  Calvin  total  depravity  and  original 
sin  ;  call  it  with  the  refined  selfishness,  or  with 
the  vulgar  meanness  ;  call  it  with  the  Bible  sin  ; 
the  fact  remains  that  the  principle  of  life  with 
which  we  all  start  out  and  which  we  find  it 
easiest  to  follow  is  a  tendency  to  assert  the 
interest  of  the  individual  as  against  the  interest 
of  others  and  of  society,  whenever  the  two  in- 
terests conflict. 

As  we  saw  in  our  last  chapter,  Mr.  Kidd  is 
right   in   his   assertion    that   there    is    no    rational 


74  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

sanction  for  social  conduct,  provided  you  assume 
that  the  individual  is  complete  in  himself.  And 
that  is  precisely  the  assumption  which  nature  is 
constantly  prompting  each  one  of  us  to  make. 

Our  interminable  line  of  animal  ancestry,  and 
the  fact  that  each  child  reproduces  in  himself  the 
main  features  of  historic  evolution,  give  to  the 
selfish,  individualistic  principle  the  start  to  begin 
with,  and  the  inside  track  throughout  the  entire 
course  of  the  moral  race.  "  That  is  not  first 
which  is  spiritual,  but  that  which  is  natural ;  then 
that  which  is  spiritual."  The  raw  material  of  life 
comes  to  us  in  the  form  of  sensuous  impulses ; 
which  in  themselves  are  neither  good  or  bad ; 
but  may  become  either,  according  to  the  uses 
that  we  make  of  them. 

Now  the  outcome  of  such  a  state  of  nature 
in  which  each  man  should  do  what  unrestrained 
nature  prompts,  would  be  intolerable.  We  should 
have  a  state  of  internecine  strife.  As  Hobbes, 
who  has  most  clearly  depicted  the  consequences 
of  unrestrained  nature,  declares,  possession  would 
be  precarious,  life  insecure,  and  the  whole  life 
of  man  would  be  "  solitary,  poor,  nasty,  brutish, 
short."  Some  other  principle  must  come  into  life 
than  the  raw  material  of  selfish  impulse,  if  life 
is  to  be  tolerable,  and  society  is  to  endure. 


THEOLOGICAL  75 

Over  against  the  natural  stands  the  spiritual. 
By  virtue  of  his  reason  man  can  transcend  the 
immediate  impulses  of  his  animal  nature  ;  he  can 
represent  to  himself  the  interests  of  others  as  equal 
to  his  own  in  reality  and  worth  ;  he  can  merge 
his  private  self  in  the  larger  life  of  society,  and 
compel  his  natural  impulses  to  obey  the  dictates 
of  reason  and  serve  the  wider  interests  which 
reason  represents.  The  spiritual  life,  therefore,  is 
the  realization  of  reason  ;  while  the  natural  life  is 
the  gratification  of  appetite.  In  the  eye  of  reason 
selfishness  is  an  illusion.  Selfishness  says  these 
keen  appetites  and  hot  passions  of  mine  are  the 
things  of  supreme  moment  in  the  world.  They 
alone  are  urgent,  vital,  peremptory.  Reason  says 
there  are  thousands  of  beings  whose  appetites  and 
passions  are  of  just  as  much  consequence  to  them 
as  mine  are  to  me.  Furthermore,  reason  points 
out  that  the  promiscuous  gratification  of  appetite 
and  passion  would  bring  but  a  short-lived  and  pre- 
carious pleasure,  while  it  would  inflict  permanent 
and  irretrievable  pain.  All  this  even  the  hedonist 
admits.  Reason,  however,  goes  a  step  further,  and 
declares  that  it  has  pleasures  of  its  own.  Reason 
demands  that  its  own  ideal  of  a  harmonious  and 
mutually  helpful  social  organism  shall  be  made 
real ;  and   it    declares    that    the  consciousness  of 


j6  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

being  a  worthy  member  of  the  social  organism  is 
of  itself  a  nobler  and  higher  satisfaction  than  the 
poor,  petty,  sensuous  indulgences  which  it  bids  us 
sacrifice.  Spirit  is  reason  realized  in  personality. 
The  spiritual  life  is  the  universal  life ;  the  life 
determined  by  reason. 

The  spiritual  first  presents  itself  as  the  merely 
prudential.  Natural  impulse  aims  only  at  the  im- 
mediate present.  Reason  soon  discovers  that  the 
gratification  of  separate  impulses  in  successive 
moments  conflict.  A  happy  to-day  may  be  bought 
too  dearly  if  it  brings  a  wretched  to-morrow.  A 
frivolous  and  rollicking  youth  may  not  be  worth 
the  premature  and  disconsolate  old  age  it  invari- 
ably brings.  Reason  demands  that  to-day  and  to- 
morrow, youth  and  old  age,  shall  be  so  related  to 
each  other  that  the  outcome  shall  be  a  consistent 
and  satisfactory  whole.  Reason  presents  the  ideal 
of  the  whole  of  life  as  the  standard  by  which  to 
test  the  worth  of  each  constituent  part.  This 
substitution  of  the  happiness  of  a  lifetime  for 
the  pleasure  of  the  moment,  this  rise  from  the 
Cyrenaic  to  the  Epicurean  view,  is  the  first  stage 
in  the  spiritualizing  of  life. 

The  maxims  of  Theognis,  the  proverbs  of  Solo- 
mon, the  counsels  of  Benjamin  Franklin  in  Poor 
Richard's  Almanac,  are  literary  expressions  of  this 


THEOLOGICAL  7 7 

spiritual  stage.  It  will  repay  us  to  examine  care- 
fully what  is  involved  in  this  first  effort  of  reason 
to  regulate  life.  My  immediate  present  appetite  is 
all  that  nature  or  sense  presents  to  me  at  this  par- 
ticular moment.  To-morrow  is  not  real  to-day. 
Old  age  is  not  an  actual  fact  present  to  the  sen- 
suous experience  of  the  youth.  To-morrow  and 
old  age  are  not  facts  of  sense,  but  ideal  representa- 
tions of  reason.  They  do  not  exist  in  the  actual 
world  which  sense  now  presses  upon  me.  They 
are  parts  of  the  larger  world  in  which  reason  tells 
me  this  sensuous  present  is  but  a  single  and  rela- 
tively unimportant  fragment.  Reason,  therefore, 
bids  me  subordinate  this  fleeting  and  fragmentary 
present  to  the  total  and  abiding  life.  Reason  bids 
us  treat  the  moment,  not  as  an  isolated  self-suffi- 
cient thing,  but  as  an  element  in  a  larger  whole. 
It  bids  us  rise  from  the  temporal  to  the  eternal 
point  of  view.  It  bids  us  treat  the  ideal  future  as 
of  equal  worth  with  existing  present  fact. 

Now  we  have  only  to  carry  this  same  process 
one  step  farther  to  get  the  ultimate  spiritual  life. 
Add  the  absent  in  space  to  the  absent  in  time  ; 
make  what  is  actual  in  the  experience  of  people 
outside  of  us  in  space  as  real  and  regulative  a  con- 
sideration in  our  conduct  as  what  is  inwardly  pres- 
ent in  our  own  personal  experience  ;  and  we  have 


yS  SOCIAL   THEOLOGY 

the  insight  which  shows  our  individual  lives  as 
members  of  the  great  life  of  the  world.  Then 
from  the  point  of  view  of  reason  we  shall  behold 
our  little  selves  as  they  really  are ;  members  of  the 
one  great  life  of  society.  To  recognize  that  my 
neighbour  is  as  real  as  myself  is  the  second  stage 
of  the  spiritual  life.  Professor  Royce  has  put  this 
matter  very  clearly.  "  Thy  neighbour  is  as  actual, 
as  concrete,  as  thou  art.  Just  as  thy  future  is  real, 
though  not  now  thine,  so  thy  neighbour  is  real, 
though  his  thoughts  never  are  thy  thoughts.  If 
he  is  real  like  thee,  then  is  his  life  as  bright  a 
light,  as  warm  a  fire,  to  him,  as  thine  to  thee  ; 
his  will  is  as  full  of  struggling  desires,  of  hard 
problems,  of  fateful  decisions ;  his  pains  are  as 
hateful,  his  joys  as  dear.  Take  whatever  thou 
knowest  of  desire  and  of  striving,  of  burning  love 
and  fierce  hatred,  realize  as  fully  as  thou  canst 
what  that  means,  and  then  with  clear  certainty 
add  :  Such  as  that  is  for  me,  so  it  is  for  him,  noth- 
ing less.  In  all  the  songs  of  the  forest  birds  ;  in 
all  the  cries  of  the  wounded  and  dying,  struggling 
in  the  captor's  power ;  in  the  boundless  sea,  where 
the  myriads  of  water-creatures  strive  and  die ; 
amid  all  the  countless  hordes  of  savage  men  ;  in 
the  hearts  of  all  the  good  and  loving  ;  in  the  dull, 
throbbing  hearts  of  all  prisoners  and  captives  ;  in 


THEOLOGICAL 


79 


all  sickness  and  sorrow  ;  in  all  exultation  and  hope ; 
in  all  our  devotion  ;  in  all  our  knowledge,  —  every- 
where from  the  lowest  to  the  noblest  creatures  and 
experiences  of  our  earth,  the  same  conscious,  burn- 
ing wilful  life  is  found,  endlessly  manifold  as  the 
forms  of  living  creatures,  unquenchable  as  the  fires 
of  the  sun,  real  as  these  impulses  that  even  now 
throb  in  thy  own  little  selfish  heart.  Lift  up  thy 
eyes,  behold  that  life,  and  then  turn  away  and  for- 
get it  as  thou  canst  ;  but  if  thou  hast  known  that, 
thou  hast  begun  to  know  thy  duty." 

The  third  stage  of  the  spiritual  life  is  the  neces- 
sary complement  of  the  second.  For  these  other 
wills  of  whose  reality  reason  and  reflection  make 
us  aware,  are  in  competition  and  conflict.  Just  as 
the  isolated  appetites  of  the  individual  conflict 
with  each  other,  and  can  be  solved  only  as  they 
are  subordinated  to  a  permanent  ideal  of  life  as  a 
whole ;  and  as  this  individual  ideal  could  be  found 
only  in  relation  to  the  other  wills  with  whom  we 
stand  in  social  relations  ;  so  the  individual  wills  of 
men  are  in  strife  and  antagonism ;  and  that  strife 
can  be  harmonized  only  as  we  rise  to  the  point 
where  we  can  see  them  in  the  light  of  the  one 
universal  will.  To  give  everybody  just  what  they 
want  is  neither  possible  nor  desirable ;  even  after 
you  have  come  to  appreciate  what  their  wants  are. 


80  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

To  give  them  what  is  best  as  distinct  from  what  is 
most  desired,  is  the  spiritual  problem.  And  this 
involves  having  an  ideal  of  their  social  relations 
and  social  condition.  The  ideal  is  social.  It  is 
universal.  It  carries  us  back  to  the  universal 
thought  and  will ;  and  shows  us  that  what  we 
found  to  be  a  necessity  of  thought  is  an  equally 
imperative  necessity  for  conduct. 

The  spirit  of  social  service  is  the  Holy  Spirit. 
The  Holy  Spirit  proceeds  from  the  Father;  for  if 
there  were  no  absolute  and  eternal  thought  and 
will  binding  all  men  together  in  the  unity  of  one 
conception  and  one  purpose ;  then  it  would  be 
"ultra-rational,"  absurd,  to  live  a  life  in  which 
the  social  good  should  be  the  aim  of  individual  en- 
deavour. The  Holy  Spirit  is  the  realization  of  the 
will  of  God  in  the  life  of  humanity.  The  Holy 
Spirit  also  "  proceeds  from  the  Son,"  as  the  later 
creed  rightly  affirms  ;  for  without  the  example  and 
inspiration  of  one  to  whom  the  Spirit  was  given 
without  measure,  and  who  embodies  the  perfec- 
tion of  the  Father's  will  and  manifests  the  com- 
pleteness of  the  principle  of  social  service,  the 
reproduction  of  the  divine  life  among  frail,  finite 
men  would  have  been  feeble,  fickle,  and  fragmen- 
tary. The  Holy  Spirit  is  Christ  multiplied  into 
individuals,  and    reproduced  in  institutions.     The 


THEOLOGICAL  8 1 

Holy  Spirit  is  the  fellowship  of  the  many  brethren 
among  whom  Christ  is  the  first-born. 

The  Holy  Spirit  is  equally  divine  with  the 
Father  and  the  Son  ;  and  with  them  is  to  be  wor- 
shipped and  glorified.  The  same  reasoning  which 
makes  the  Son  equal  to  the  Father  in  all  spiritual 
things,  makes  the  Holy  Spirit  equal  to  both. 
Jesus  said  not  only,  "  He  that  receiveth  me  receiv- 
eth  him  that  sent  me  "  ;  but  also,  "  He  that  receiv- 
eth you  receiveth  me."  If  the  purpose  to  establish 
in  humanity  a  kingdom  of  love  and  mutual  good-will 
is  the  essential  thought  and  will  of  the  Father ; 
then  he  who  came  to  make  that  purpose  actual  in 
history  by  his  teaching,  his  example,  and  his  inspi- 
ration —  in  other  words,  the  Christ  —  is  also  divine, 
for  he  is  the  embodiment  in  outward  fact  of  what 
God  is  in  inmost  thought.  And  if  the  revelation 
of  this  thought  and  the  doing  of  this  will  makes 
Christ  divine ;  then  the  life  of  every  individual 
man  who  receives  this  thought  into  his  mind  and 
makes  this  purpose  the  object  of  his  will  becomes 
therein  a  recipient  of  the  life  and  spirit  of  God  ; 
a  temple  in  whom  the  Holy  Spirit  dwells.  And 
the  Spirit  of  God  dwelling  in  the  hearts  and  lives 
of  men  is  no  less  divine  than  the  thought  and  will 
which  this  Spirit  embodies  ;  no  less  divine  than 
the  historic   person    through  whom  in  its  fulness 


82  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

and  completeness  this  same  thought  and  will  first 
became  manifest. 

The  Holy  Spirit  is  the  thought  of  God,  the  life 
of  Christ,  reproduced  in  those  who  obey  God  and 
follow  Christ.  As  Jesus  promised  his  disciples, 
"He  shall  be  in  you."  And  God  in  man  is  in  no 
wise  inferior  to  God  in  nature ;  God  unfolding  his 
thought  and  working  out  his  purpose  through  in- 
dividuals in  time  is  not  inferior  to  God  abiding 
in  his  perfect  thought  throughout  eternity. 

Yes :  the  Holy  Spirit  is  of  the  same  essence  as 
the  Father,  as  the  old  creeds  profoundly  teach. 
If  this  is  meaningless  jargon  to  modern  ears,  it 
is  because  we  have  missed  the  intimate  relation 
in  which  God  stands  to  man  and  man  to  God. 
As  Dr.  Bushnell  said  a  generation  ago :  "  We 
think  of  the  Holy  Spirit  as  of  some  impersonal 
force,  some  hidden  fire,  some  holy  gale,  not  such 
a  Spirit  as,  living  in  us,  keeps  the  sensibilities 
even  of  Gethsemane  and  the  passion  in  immediate 
contact  with  our  inmost  life."  The  Holy  Spirit  is 
the  meeting-point  between  the  actuality  of  God 
and  the  possibility  of  man.  Just  in  so  far  as  we 
rise  above  the  crude,  selfish  impulses  of  our  imme- 
diate animal  nature,  to  that  precise  extent  does 
God  come  down  into  us,  and  make  his  abode  with 
us.     And   the  indwelling  God,  the  self-transcend- 


THEOLOGICAL  83 

ing  life  of  social  service,  is  the  presence  of  the 
Holy  Spirit  in  our  hearts  and  lives.  To  deny 
the  divinity  of  the  Son  and  the  Spirit,  is  to 
reduce  the  conception  of  God  to  that  of  a 
blank,  self-identical  nonentity ;  to  banish  him 
from  the  whole  course  of  history  and  the  entire 
sphere  of  reality ;  and  to  leave  man  without 
reliable  guidance  or  personal  inspiration  in  the 
spiritual  life.  In  place  of  a  living,  growing  con- 
sciousness of  a  personal  Father,  a  personal  Mas- 
ter, a  personal  Companion  ;  such  a  denial  drives 
man  into  a  blind  acceptance  of  unverified  tradi- 
tion ;  a  perfunctory  observance  of  unintelligible 
rites;  or  a  rationalistic  reliance  upon  cold  hard 
crumbs  of  finite  fact,  to  give  to  life  its  lost  sem- 
blance of  an  infinite   significance. 

In  succeeding  chapters  we  have  considered  the 
Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Spirit  as  distinct  objects 
of  thought,  reached  by  distinct  lines  of  reflection. 
The  Father  is  the  Absolute  Ground  of  the  phe- 
nomena of  nature  and  the  progressive  movement 
of  history.  The  Son  is  the  incarnation  of  the 
divine  in  humanity  and  the  champion  of  the  ideal 
in  its  conquest  of  reality.  The  Holy  Spirit  is  the 
Helper  and  Comforter  without  whose  presence  our 
aspiration  to  overcome  the  appetites  of  our  nature 
would  be  irrational  and  our  efforts  vain. 


84  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

These  three  are  one.  Unless  there  be  a  Father 
whose  thought  and  will  include  the  right  relations 
of  all  beings  to  each  other,  there  can  be  no  Son, 
who  finds  it  his  meat  and  drink  to  do  the  Father's 
will.  Unless,  on  the  other  hand,  there  be  a  true 
and  real  and  eternal  Son,  through  whom  this  will  is 
done,  the  will  of  the  Father  remains  nothing  but  a 
pale,  unsubstantial  shadow,  hovering  in  the  back- 
ground of  speculative  thought.  The  Father  mani- 
fests himself  through  the  Son  ;  and  the  Son  exists 
in  the  Father. 

Unless  there  be  an  eternal  Son,  who  embodies 
the  perfect  ideal  of  human  life,  no  Divine  Spirit, 
conscious  of  oneness  with  the  Father,  can  dwell 
with  men  ;  but  all  our  moral  aspiration  and  social 
endeavour  would  remain  a  blind  striving  after  the 
unknown  and  the  unattainable.  And  on  the  other 
hand,  unless  such  an  indwelling  of  the  Spirit  be 
possible  to  us,  then  Christ  becomes  an  unintelligi- 
ble projection  into  history  of  an  alien  being. 

Each  is  interpreted  through  the  other.  The 
evidence  presented  in  the  first  chapter  for  the 
being  of  God  must  have  seemed  to  the  thoughtful 
reader  inadequate,  inconclusive.  So  it  is.  Only 
through  the  Son  do  we  know  the  Father.  The 
Spirit  in  ourselves  is  the  only  infallible  witness  of 
his  existence.     And  all   our  subsequent   study  of 


THEOLOGICAL  85 

the  working  of  the  Spirit  in  the  hearts  of  men  and 
in  the  institutions  of  society  will  be  the  confirma- 
tion of  the  evidence  which  in  the  first  chapter 
could  be  presented  only  in  its  abstract,  metaphysi- 
cal form.  Theology  is  a  circle.  Each  part  of  it 
tells  something  about  all  the  rest.  We  might 
begin  almost  anywhere :  but  in  any  case  we 
should  find  the  first  steps  difficult  ;  for  until  we 
have  seen  the  whole  circle  we  cannot  rightly 
appreciate  the  necessity  and  significance  of  any 
part.  The  divinity  of  Christ,  taken  as  an  isolated 
proposition,  is  incapable  of  proof.  Unless  we 
bring  to  our  interpretation  of  the  person  of  Christ 
the  conception  of  the  Father's  loving  will  for  all 
his  children  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  conception 
of  the  Holy  Spirit  prompting  us  to  social  service 
on  the  other  hand,  we  cannot  form  a  worthy  con- 
ception of  Christ  as  the  Son  of  God.  And  in 
like  manner,  the  Holy  Spirit  will  never  be  to  us 
anything  more  than  a  name  signifying  something 
mysterious,  a  mere  "  Ghost,"  as  the  English  re- 
visers insisted  that  he  shall  continue  to  be  called, 
until  we  recognize  the  life  of  social  service  in 
ourselves  as  an  embodiment  of  the  eternal  love 
of  the  Father,  and  as  a  reproduction  in  us  of  the 
life  of  his  well  beloved  Son. 


Part  II 
ANTHROPOLOGICAL 


CHAPTER    IV 

SIN    AND    LAW JUDGMENT 

It  is  impossible  to  separate  God  from  man, 
or  man  from  God.  They  are  correlative  terms. 
Hitherto  we  have  been  considering  God  as  his 
relation  to  man  discloses  him.  Henceforth  we 
shall  consider  man  as  he  is  determined  by  his 
relation  to  God.  Already  we  have  seen  that 
man  is  a  relative,  finite,  dependent  being.  In 
that  fact  as  such  no  evil  is  involved.  But  a  finite 
being  endowed  with  self-consciousness  and  free- 
dom, is  capable  of  attempting  to  assert  his  inde- 
pendence ;  and  to  set  up  his  own  finite  being  as 
self-sufficient.  Again  we  saw  that  in  the  progress 
toward  the  perfect  it  is  possible  for  man  to  carry 
forward  survivals  of  lower  stages  of  development 
into  higher  stages;  and  so  to  transform  a  primi- 
tive virtue  into  a  present  vice.  Again  we  saw 
that  impulses,  appetites,  and  passions  which  are 
harmless  and  even  beneficial  from  the  natural 
standpoint  of  the  individual,  are  inconsistent  with 
the  social  well-being,  which  it  is  the  essence  of 
the  spiritual  life  to  recognize  and  further. 

89 


QO  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

These  are  all  aspects  of  the  fall  to  which  a 
finite  individual,  placed  in  the  midst  of  a  social 
order  which  is  constantly  changing,  is  liable. 
This  assertion  of  the  finite  against  the  Infinite, 
of  past  permissions  against  present  ideals,  of 
the  individual  interest  against  social  well-being,  is 
sin.  Its  specific  forms  are  as  numerous  as  the 
relations  in  which  man  stands  ;  as  various  as  the 
lines  on  which  society  is  advancing  ;  as  multitu- 
dinous as  the  points  at  which  individual  and 
social  interests  touch.  It  is  the  province  of 
ethics  to  trace  out  in  detail  the  special  forms  of 
virtue  and  vice  which  result  from  the  fulfilment 
or  the  violation  of  these  relations.  Religion  is 
concerned  with  the  single  principle  which  is 
common  to  all  the  particular  cases. 

All  self-assertion  of  the  individual  against  the 
social  order,  and  against  God  as  the  author  and  per- 
fecter  of  the  social  order,  is  sin.  Sin  is  the  attempt 
of  the  individual  to  set  himself  up  as  the  lord  of  his 
little  world;  when  it  manifests  itself  as  pride  and 
vanity.  Sin  is  the  clinging  to  antiquated  customs 
and  inherited  rights,  and  traditional  views,  after 
they  have  ceased  to  represent  existing  facts  and 
promote  social  well-being ;  when  it  takes  the  form 
of  bigotry  and  hypocrisy.  Sin  is  the  attempt  of 
the  individual  to  take  advantage  of  the  imperfect 


ANTHROPOLOGICAL  9 1 

institutions,  or  the  imperfect  knowledge,  or  the 
unequal  opportunities  of  his  fellows  in  order  to 
make  private  gain  out  of  their  loss  ;  when  it  takes 
the  form  of  meanness  and  dishonesty.  Sin  is  the 
willingness  to  secure  something  for  myself  with- 
out rendering  society  an  equivalent.  Sin  is  the 
disposition  to  make  in  my  own  favour  exceptions 
to  the  just  and  impartial  law  of  God.  Sin  is  the 
disposition  to  treat  other  people  as  means  to  our 
own  ends  ;  instead  of  recognizing  both  others  and 
ourselves  as  alike  means  and  ends  in  one  common 
social  order. 

Sin  is  an  original  principle  in  human  nature. 
By  virtue  of  our  finitude  we  must  be  conscious 
of  our  own  private  desires,  before  we  can  be 
equally  alive  to  the  desires  and  claims  of  others. 
The  "good"  child  who  always  minds  when  he 
is  spoken  to  ;  who  always  observes  the  proprie- 
ties ;  who  never  gets  angry  ;  who  never  makes 
too  much  noise ;  who  never  fights,  will  not 
make  the  strongest  type  of  man.  Real  good- 
ness is  good  for  something.  Real  regard  for 
others  implies  intense  likes  and  dislikes  of  one's 
own.  And  the  boy  who  does  not  assert  his 
own  rights  and  fight  his  own  battles  when  a 
boy,  will  be  unable  to  protect  the  rights  and 
fight  the   battles    of   others    when    he    is    a    man. 


92  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

The  servant  of  others  must  first  have  served 
himself.  The  development  of  the  child  is  a  re- 
production of  the  evolution  of  the  race.  Had 
there  been  no  tiger  in  our  ancestors,  we  should 
not  be  civilized  men  to-day.  Our  mild  virtues 
would  have  stood  us  in  poor  stead  in  the  fierce 
struggle  for  existence  which  our  savage  ancestors 
fought  out  for  us  in  the  primeval  forests.  Our 
altruism  rests  on  the  deep  and  obscure  founda- 
tion of  their  fierce  egoism.  Had  our  ancestors 
been  of  gentler  temper,  we  should  not  have  been 
at  all. 

The  doctrine  of  original  sin  does  not  find  favour 
with  that  sentimental  mood  which  just  now  hap- 
pens to  be  dominant  in  religious  thought ;  but  the 
modern  historical  conception  of  human  evolution 
brings  it  out  tenfold  more  clear  than  when  it  was 
proclaimed  by  lonely  seers  like  Kant  and  Calvin 
and  Augustine  and  Paul.  Sin  is  the  most  univer- 
sal, the  most  stubborn,  the  most  cruel,  the  most 
ineradicable  element  in  human  nature. 

The  correlate  and  corrective  of  sin  is  law.  Law 
is  the  formulation  of  rights.  Law  is  the  declara- 
tion of  the  conditions  of  social  well-being.  As  sin 
is  the  destruction  of  the  interests  of  society  and  of 
other  individuals,  in  order  to  secure  the  immediate 
gratification  of  the  sinner  at   the  social  expense ; 


ANTHROPOLOGICAL  93 

so  law  is  the  assertion  that  the  social  interests  of 
the  community  must  be  conserved  at  the  cost  of 
reasonable  and  necessary  sacrifice  on  the  part 
of  individuals.  The  law,  therefore,  "is  holy,  just, 
and  good,"  because  it  is  simply  the  affirmation  of 
the  common  good  as  against  the  private  encroach- 
ments of  individuals.  When  once  the  law  is  de- 
clared, sin  takes  the  form  of  disobedience.  "  Sin 
is  lawlessness."  "Sin  is  the  transgression  of  the 
law." 

Law  assumes   two  forms  :    the  ceremonial    and 
the  moral.      In  early  times  these  two  are  blended 
in    one    system.     Later   they   are   separated.     At 
first  both  are  supported  by  civil  authority.     Later 
the  ceremonial  is  greatly  reduced  in  scope ;  and  is 
compelled  to  rest  on  social  sentiment  and  personal 
conscience   for   its    sanction    and    support.     And 
even  the  moral  law,  in  its  higher  requirements  and 
subtler    applications,    ultimately   appeals    to    the 
same  sources  for  its  sanction.     The  moral  law  lays 
down  the  particular  things  which  must  be  done,  or 
must  not  be  done,  in  the    interest    of   the   social 
order.     The    ceremonial    law,    on     the    contrary, 
confines  itself  to  prescribing  or  prohibiting  those 
things  which  promote  or  retard  the  cultivation  of 
the  social  spirit  in  general ;  and  reverence  for  God 
as  the  upholder  of  the  social  fabric. 


94  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

The  ceremonial  law  is  peculiarly  liable  to  cor- 
ruption ;  as  the  requirements  of  this  law  are 
artificial  and  arbitrary.  They  are  valuable  so  long 
as  they  are  recognized  as  symbolical  of  the  atti- 
tude of  reverence  to  God  and  service  to  man  : 
but  they  are  worse  than  worthless  ;  they  are  mis- 
chievous and  perverse,  as  soon  as  this,  their  sym- 
bolical significance,  is  lost,  and  they  are  regarded 
as  having  virtue  and  value  in  themselves.  Every 
religious  system  in  the  process  of  time  accumu- 
lates in  its  attic  a  heap  of  this  worn-out  ceremonial 
rubbish  ;  and  a  reformation  is  needed  every  few 
generations  to  sweep  it  out,  and  take  a  fresh  start 
with  new  and  vital  symbols.  Protestantism  ac- 
cumulates this  stock  of  faded  millinery  and  worn- 
out  garments  as  fast  as  Catholicism.  The  only 
difference  is  that  Catholicism  has  been  accumulat- 
ing longer ;  and  has  a  more  intense  aversion  to 
the  necessary  periodical  house-cleaning  than  the 
Protestant  sects  :  and  that  Protestantism  is  prone 
to  treasure  up  antiquated  conceptions  of  truth 
rather  than  obsolete  expressions  of  worship. 

Hence  it  often  happens  that  the  deeper  and 
truer  service  of  God  and  the  social  good  demands 
the  destruction  and  overthrow  of  the  ceremonial 
requirements.  Isaiah  and  Jesus,  Luther  and  Knox, 
were   compelled  to  tear  down  ceremonial   observ- 


ANTHROPOLOGICAL 


95 


ances  which  had  degenerated  from  original  helps 
to  actual  obstructions  to  the  religious  spirit  they 
were  meant  to  foster  and  the  social  service  they 
were  intended  to  promote. 

As  we  have  already  seen,  even  the  moral  law, 
though  to  a  much  less  extent,  is  subject  to  a 
corresponding  degeneration.  Acts  which  are  per- 
missible and  even  praiseworthy  in  one  stage  of 
development  are  prohibited  and  condemned  in  an- 
other. As  long  as  the  worth  of  the  human  indi- 
vidual as  such  remained  relatively  unrecognized, 
slavery  was  relatively  permissible  ;  and  the  wisest 
philosophers  and  the  justest  lawgivers  of  the  an- 
cient world  accepted  slavery  as  a  necessary  human 
and  therefore  a  warranted  divine  institution.  But 
the  advancing  recognition  of  the  dignity  of  human 
personality  made  the  indignity  of  slavery  increas- 
ingly manifest ;  and  thus  what  had  been  permitted 
as  relatively  right  became  prohibited  as  absolutely 
wrong.  Where  protection  and  support  was  as 
much  as  women  could  expect,  and  where  the  per- 
petuation of  the  family  was  as  much  as  men 
thought  of,  polygamy  and  concubinage  were  not 
inconsistent  elements  of  social  arrangements,  and 
not  incompatible  precepts  of  a  genuinely  benefi- 
cent law.  But  when  the  personal  affections  were 
deepened,  and    intellectual    affinities   began  to  be 


g6  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

appreciated,  and  spiritual  union  came  to  be  de- 
sired, and  the  infinite  worth  of  the  human  soul 
came  to  be  recognized  ;  then  what  had  been  per- 
mitted to  the  hardness  of  primitive  hearts  was 
prohibited  by  the  tenderer  requirements  of  softened 
and  civilized  souls.  Hence  a  Socrates  and  a  Jesus 
may  find  their  higher  duty  in  opposition  to  the 
imperfect  morality,  as  well  as  in  disregard  of  the 
ceremonial  observances  of  their  times. 

And  yet  in  so  doing  they  do  not  destroy  but 
rather  fulfil  the  spirit  of  the  law  whose  letter 
they  abolish.  For  as  the  law  has  its  sole  justifi- 
cation in  a  form  of  social  good  which  it  upholds, 
so  they  are  justified  in  overthrowing  it,  provided 
they  can  show  a  greater  good,  more  adapted  to  the 
requirements  of  their  times,  which  they  establish 
in  its  place. 

Law  is  not  ultimate ;  but  is  the  imperfect  and 
temporary  means  to  a  permanent  and  ever-enlarg- 
ing social  good.  Below  the  law  no  man  may  fall 
without  sin.  Above  it  the  prophet  and  reformer 
are  often  compelled  to  rise,  in  order  to  reach 
higher  forms  of  good  than  the  law  has  recognized  ; 
and  to  lift  the  law,  by  their  example  and  precept, 
to  the  level  of  the  new  and  larger  good.  In  the 
sight  of  the  law  such  persons  are  sinners,  equally 
with  the  criminals  who  break  the  law  in  their  own 


ANTHROPOLOGICAL  gy 

private  interest.  The  difference,  however,  is  world- 
wide. The  culpable  sinner  hates  the  law  and 
breaks  it  because  it  affirms  the  social  and  denies 
his  private  good.  The  prophet  and  reformer  breaks 
down  the  letter  of  the  ancient  law  because  he  finds 
it  has  become  the  excuse  for  selfish  practices  and 
private  indulgences,  and  he  desires  to  put  in  its 
place  a  law  which  will  lift  life  to  humaner  levels, 
and  bring  man  nearer  to  his  God. 

Law  originates  in  opposition  to  sin  ;  and  in  its 
early  form  is  confined  to  the  prohibition  of  irrev- 
erent and  unsocial  conduct.  The  Ten  Command- 
ments are  the  nucleus  of  such  a  code.  The  form 
in  which  this  code  was  delivered  was  doubtless 
much  more  natural  than  the  literal  interpreta- 
tion of  the  Old  Testament  narrative  has  led 
men  to  suppose.  The  date  of  the  completion  of 
this  legislation  was  doubtless  centuries  later  than 
tradition  has  assumed.  The  process  of  formation 
was  doubtless  far  more  gradual  than  orthodox  com- 
mentators have  been  willing  to  admit. 

Yet  if  God  be  a  Spirit ;  if  the  moral  progress 
of  the  race  be  an  object  of  his  thought  and  a  pur- 
pose of  his  will ;  then  this  legislation,  by  whom- 
soever it  may  have  been  promulgated,  howsoever 
it  may  have  been  developed,  whensoever  it  may 
have  been    completed,   is  nevertheless    a  genuine 


98  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

revelation  of  the  thought,  an  authoritative  declara- 
tion of  the  will  of  God.  For  it  proclaimed  in  no 
uncertain  tone,  and  far  in  advance  of  the  moral 
attainments  of  the  age,  the  conditions  essential 
to  the  maintenance  of  social  well-being.  What  is 
social  is  spiritual.  What  is  for  the  good  of  man 
is  for  the  glory  of  God.  The  Mosaic  law  was  social 
and  beneficent.  Therefore  the  Mosaic  law  is  the 
revelation  of  the  Spirit,  the  declaration  of  God. 

The  contrast  between  sin  and  law  brings  judg- 
ment. Judgment  is  simply  the  declaration  of  the 
fact  that  sin  and  law  are  irreconcilable.  There  is 
nothing  arbitrary  or  artificial  about  it.  It  is.  not  a 
remote  future  event.  It  is  a  present  reality.  As 
soon  as  an  act  is  performed,  it  is  either  lawful  or 
unlawful ;  it  either  promotes  or  injures  the  social 
good  ;  and  judgment  is  the  perception  of  that  fact 
by  God,  by  the  man  who  has  performed  the  act, 
and  by  all  who  come  to  know  the  act  and  see 
it  in  its  true  relations.  The  conscience  of  the 
individual  and  the  verdict  of  society  both  are 
reflections  and  expressions,  more  or  less  perfect, 
of  the  absolute  judgment  of  God,  whose  thought 
includes  the  act  in  all  its  bearings  and  relations. 

The  judgment  of  sin  brings  condemnation. 
God's  thought  includes  impartially  the  good  of  ali- 
bis creatures.     God   is    no    respecter  of   persons. 


ANTHROPOLC )( HCAL  99 

Sin,  however,  is  the  sacrifice  of  the  good  of  others 
and  of  society  to  the  fancied  good  of  the  individual 
sinner.  Sin  is  in  its  very  nature,  selfish,  mean, 
and  contemptible.  God's  condemnation  is  his 
clear  perception  of  how  contemptible  sin  is.  The 
reflection  of  that  absolute  judgment  of  God  in 
the  mind  of  the  individual,  or  conscience,  brings 
shame  and  humiliation  and  remorse.  It  is  the 
conviction  that  we  have  done  a  mean  and  con- 
temptible thing.  We  may  have  enjoyed  doing  it 
when  we  thought  merely  of  our  own  selfish  inter- 
est ;  our  own  private  gratification.  But  when  we 
come  to  see  it  in  its  larger  relations ;  when  we 
come  out  of  the  darkness  and  illusion  of  our  blind 
and  petty  selfishness ;  when  we  see  the  wrong  it 
has  done  to  others ;  when  we  see  how  hideous  it 
looks  in  the  daylight ;  when  we  get  found  out,  and 
see  how  others  despise  it ;  when  we  look  at  it  as 
it  is  in  itself ;  when  we  look  at  it  in  the  impartial 
way  in  which  God  looks  at  it :  then  we  are  over- 
whelmed with  guilt  and  shame.  The  only  refuge 
of  the  sinner  is  concealment.  Sin  is  ever  sneak- 
ing and  cowardly.  It  loves  darkness  rather  than 
light,  because  its  deeds  are  evil.  He  that  doeth 
the  truth  cometh  to  the  light,  that  his  deeds  may 
be  manifest  that  they  are  wrought  in  God. 

An  excellent  test  of  character  is  this  willingness 


IOO  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

to  be  tested  by  the  light.  Art  thou  willing  to  be 
known  for  just  what  thou  art  ?  Wouldst  thou 
welcome  inspection  in  the  inmost  recesses  of  thy 
heart  ?  Wouldst  thou  enjoy  the  companionship 
of  spirits  who  could  see  and  read  the  secrets  of 
thy  soul  ?  Wouldst  thou  be  comfortable  if  thy 
body  were  transparent  glass,  revealing  in  perfect 
clearness  the  thoughts  and  imaginations  and 
desires  of  thy  mind  ?  Then  thou  art  guileless 
and  guiltless.  Then  the  omniscient  Judge  is  not 
dreadful  to  thee,  but  welcome.  Then  thou  art 
sinless  and  perfect.  Then  the  spirit-world  would 
be  to  thee  a  delightful  home. 

With  this  test  before  us,  it  is  hardly  necessary 
to  lay  down  in  dogmatic  form  the  doctrine  that  all 
men  have  sinned  and  come  short  of  the  glory  of 
God.  In  the  clear,  white  light  of  such  a  judgment 
all  stand  condemned  ;  all  mouths  are  stopped. 

And  yet  to  such  a  judgment-seat  we  must  all  be 
brought.  Before  it  even  now  we  all  stand.  The 
crude,  coarse  imagery  of  hell-fire  and  artificial  tort- 
ure disturbs  the  minds  of  men  no  more.  But  the 
certainty  that  "  there  is  nothing  covered  that  shall 
not  be  revealed,"  this  impending  and  indeed  act- 
ually present  judgment  by  revelation,  is  no  creation 
of  dogmatic  theology  ;  no  fiction  of  the  hortatory 
imagination  ;   no  artificial   projection  of   mediaeval 


ANTHROPOLOGICAL  I  o  I 

horror.  It  is  certain  as  thought,  universal  as 
reason,  as  old  as  creation  ;  and  never  set  forth 
more  clearly  and  forcibly  than  by  Plato,  at  the 
close  of  the  Gorgias.  In  these  days,  when  the 
Christian  teaching  on  this  point  is  regarded  by 
sentimentalists  as  harsh  and  irrational,  it  is  well 
worth  while  to  recall  the  words  of  this  ancient 
philosopher,  uttered  four  centuries  before  the 
Christian  era. 

"  Listen,  then,"  Plato  represents  Socrates  as 
saying,  "to  a  very  pretty  tale,  which  I  dare 
say  that  you  may  be  disposed  to  regard  as  a 
fable  only,  but  which,  as  I  believe,  is  a  true  tale, 
for  I  mean,  in  what  I  am  going  to  tell  you,  to 
speak  the  truth.  Now  in  the  days  of  Cronos 
there  was  this  law  respecting  the  destiny  of  man, 
which  has  always  existed,  and  still  continues  in 
heaven,  that  he  who  has  lived  all  his  life  in  justice 
and  holiness  shall  go,  when  he  dies,  to  the  islands 
of  the  blest,  and  dwell  there  in  perfect  happiness 
out  of  the  reach  of  evil ;  but  that  he  who  has  lived 
unjustly  and  impiously  shall  go  to  the  house  of 
vengeance  and  punishment,  which  is  called  Tar- 
tarus. And  in  the  time  of  Cronos,  and  even  later 
in  the  reign  of  Zeus,  the  judgment  was  given  on 
the  very  clay  on  which  the  men  were  to  die ;  the 
judges  were  alive,  and  the  men  were  alive  ;  and  the 


102  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

consequence  was  that  the  judgments  were  not  well 
given.  Then  Pluto  and  the  authorities  from  the 
islands  of  the  blest  came  to  Zeus,  and  said  that 
the  souls  found  their  way  to  the  wrong  places. 
Zeus  said  :  '  I  shall  put  a  stop  to  this  ;  the  judg- 
ments are  not  well  given,  and  the  reason  is  that 
the  judged  have  their  clothes  on,  for  they  are 
alive  ;  and  there  are  many  having  evil  souls  who 
are  apparelled  in  fair  bodies,  or  wrapt  round  in 
wealth  and  rank,  and  when  the  day  of  judgment 
arrives  many  witnesses  come  forward  and  witness 
on  their  behalf,  that  they  have  lived  righteously. 
The  judges  are  awed  by  them,  and  they  them- 
selves, too,  have  their  clothes  on  when  judging; 
their  eyes  and  ears  and  their  whole  bodies  are 
interposed  as  a  veil  before  their  own  souls.  This 
all  stands  in  their  way ;  there  are  the  clothes  of 
the  judges  and  the  clothes  of  the  judged.  What 
is  to  be  done  ?  I  will  tell  you  :  In  the  first  place, 
I  will  deprive  men  of  the  foreknowledge  of  death, 
which  they  at  present  possess ;  in  the  second 
place,  they  shall  be  entirely  stripped  before  they 
are  judged,  for  they  shall  be  judged  when  they 
are  dead ;  and  the  judge  too  shall  be  naked,  that 
is  to  say,  dead  ;  he  with  his  naked  soul  shall 
pierce  into  the  other  naked  soul  as  soon  as  each 
man  dies,  he  knows  not  when,  and  is  deprived  of 


ANTHROPOLOGICAL  103 

his  kindred,  and  has  left  his  brave  attire  in  the 
world  above,  and  then  the  judgment  will  be  just.' 

"This  is  a  tale,  Callicles,  which  I  have  heard 
and  believe,  and  from  which  I  draw  the  following 
inferences  :  Death,  if  I  am  right,  is  in  the  first 
place  the  separation  from  one  another  of  two 
things,  —  soul  and  body;  this,  and  nothing  else. 
And  after  they  are  separated  they  retain  their 
several  characteristics,  which  are  much  the  same 
as  in  life ;  the  body  has  the  same  nature  and 
ways  and  affections,  all  clearly  discernible ;  for 
example,  he  who  was  a  tall  man  while  he  was 
alive,  will  remain  as  he  was,  after  he  is  dead ;  and 
the  fat  man  will  remain  fat  ;  and  so  on.  And  if 
he  was  marked  with  the  whip  and  had  the  prints 
of  the  scourge  in  him  when  he  was  alive,  you 
might  see  the  same  in  the  dead  body.  And,  in  a 
word,  whatever  was  the  habit  of  the  body  during 
life  would  be  distinguishable  after  death,  either 
perfectly,  or  in  a  great  measure  and  for  a  time. 
And  I  should  infer  that  this  is  equally  true  of 
the  soul,  Callicles  ;  when  a  man  is  stripped  of  the 
body,  all  the  natural  or  acquired  affections  of  the 
soul  are  laid  open  to  view.  And  when  they  come 
to  the  judge,  he  places  them  near  him  and  in- 
spects them  quite  impartially,  not  knowing  whose 
the  soul  is  :  perhaps  he  may  lay  hands  on  the  soul 


104  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

of  the  great  king,  or  of  some  other  king  or  poten- 
tate who  has  no  soundness  in  him,  but  his  soul  is 
marked  with  the  whip,  and  is  full  of  the  prints  of 
the  scars  of  perjuries,  and  of  wrongs  which  have 
been  plastered  into  him  by  each  action,  and  he  is 
all  crooked  with  falsehood  and  imposture,  and 
has  no  straightness  because  he  has  lived  without 
truth.  Him  the  judge  beholds,  full  of  deformity 
and  disproportion,  which  is  caused  by  license  and 
luxury  and  insolence  and  incontinence,  and  de- 
spatches him  ignominiously  to  his  prison,  and 
there  he  undergoes  the  punishment  which  he 
deserves. 

"  Now  I,  Callicles,  am  persuaded  of  the  truth  of 
these  things,  and  I  consider  how  I  shall  present 
my  soul  whole  and  undefiled  before  the  judge  in 
that  day.  Renouncing  the  honours  at  which  the 
world  aims,  I  desire  only  to  know  the  truth,  and 
to  live  as  well  as  I  can,  and,  when  the  time  comes, 
to  die.  Follow  me  then,  and  I  will  lead  you 
where  you  will  be  happy  in  life  and  after  death  : 
and  do  you  be  of  good  cheer,  for  you  will  never 
come  to  any  harm  in  the  practise  of  virtue,  if  you 
are  a  really  good  and  true  man.  The  best  way  of 
life  is  to  practice  justice  and  every  virtue  in  life 
and  death." 

This    same   fact   of    an    ever-present   judgment 


ANTHROPOLOGICAL  105 

Fichte  brings  out  in  a  very  searching  passage 
in  which  he  shows  us  how  we  may  anticipate 
its  verdict  upon  ourselves.  "  Tell  me  what  direc- 
tion thy  thoughts  take,  —  not  when  thou  with 
tightened  hand  constrainest  them  to  a  purpose, — 
but  when  in  thy  hours  of  recreation  thou  allow- 
est  them  freely  to  rove  abroad ;  tell  me  what 
direction  they  then  take,  where  they  naturally 
turn  as  to  their  most  loved  home,  in  what  thou 
thyself  in  the  innermost  depths  of  thy  soul  find- 
est  thy  chief  enjoyment,  —  and  then  I  will  tell 
thee  what  are  thy  tastes.  Are  they  directed 
towards  the  Godlike,  and  to  those  things  in  nature 
and  art  wherein  the  Godlike  most  directly  reveals 
itself  in  imposing  majesty?  —  then  is  the  God- 
like not  dreadful  to  thee  but  friendly  ;  thy  tastes 
lead  thee  to  it,  it  is  thy  most  loved  enjoyment. 
Do  they,  when  released  from  the  constraint  with 
which  thou  hast  directed  them  to  a  serious  pur- 
suit, eagerly  turn  to  brood  over  sensual  pleasures, 
and  find  relaxation  in  the  pursuit  of  these  ?  — 
then  hast  thou  a  vulgar  taste,  and  thou  must 
invite  animalism  into  the  innermost  recesses  of 
thy  soul  before  it  can  seem  well  with  thee  there." 
The  profoundest  test  of  character,  however,  is 
that  given  by  our  Lord,  in  the  twenty-fifth  chap- 
ter of  Matthew.     There  the  principle  of  separa- 


106  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

tion  between  the  sheep  and  the  goats  is  shown 
to  be  simply  genuineness  and  fidelity  in  social 
service.  "Then  shall  the  King  say  unto  them 
on  his  right  hand,  Come,  ye  blessed  of  my  Father, 
inherit  the  kingdom  prepared  for  you  from  the 
foundation  of  the  world  :  for  I  was  an  hungered, 
and  ye  gave  me  meat  :  I  was  thirsty,  and  ye 
gave  me  drink  :  I  was  a  stranger,  and  ye  took 
me  in  ;  naked,  and  ye  clothed  me  :  I  was  sick, 
and  ye  visited  me  :  I  was  in  prison  and  ye  came 
unto  me.  Then  shall  the  righteous  answer  him, 
saying,  Lord,  when  saw  we  thee  an  hungered, 
and  fed  thee  ?  or  athirst,  and  gave  thee  drink  ? 
And  when  saw  we  thee  a  stranger  and  took  thee 
in  ?  or  naked,  and  clothed  thee  ?  And  when  saw 
we  thee  sick,  or  in  prison,  and  came  unto  thee  ? 
And  the  King  shall  answer  and  say  unto  them, 
Verily  I  say  unto  you,  Inasmuch  as  ye  did  it 
unto  one  of  these  my  brethren,  even  these  least, 
ye  did  it  unto  me.  Then  shall  he  say  also  unto 
them  on  the  left  hand,  Depart  from  me,  ye 
cursed,  into  the  eternal  fire  that  is  prepared  for 
the  devil  and  his  angels  :  for  I  was  an  hungered, 
and  ye  gave  me  no  meat :  I  was  thirsty,  and  ye 
gave  me  no  drink :  I  was  a  stranger,  and  ye 
took  me  not  in  ;  naked,  and  ye  clothed  me  not ; 
sick,  and  in  prison,  and  ye  visited  me  not.     Then 


ANTHROPOLOGICAL  107 

shall  they  also  answer,  saying,  Lord,  when  saw 
we  thee  an  hungered,  or  athirst,  or  a  stranger, 
or  naked,  or  sick,  or  in  prison,  and  did  not  min- 
ister unto  thee  ?  Then  shall  he  answer  them, 
saying,  Verily  I  say  unto  you,  Inasmuch  as  ye 
did  it  not  unto  one  of  these  least,  ye  did  it  not 
unto  me." 

A  man's  relations  to  his  fellow-men  deter- 
mine his  relations  to  Christ  and  to  God.  For 
the  will  of  God,  the  life  and  work  of  Christ,  has 
for  its  end  and  aim  the  well-being  of  men,  who 
are  the  children  of  God  and  the  brethren  of 
Christ.  Hence  our  serviceableness  to  our  fel- 
low-men is  the  exact  and  infallible  measure  of 
our  acceptableness  to  God.  No  ritualistic,  or 
ceremonial,  or  ecclesiastical,  or  doctrinal,  or  pro- 
fessional substitute  can  be  found  which  will  in 
the  slightest  degree  take  the  place  of  this  sim- 
ple, straightforward  Tightness  of  relation  with 
our  fellow-men.  Religion  is  the  larger  aspect, 
the  universal  form  of  our  social  relationships. 
For  God  is  not  a  Being  alien  to  men  and  re- 
mote from  the  world.  God  is  the  Father  of  all 
men  ;  the  Spirit  in  whom  we  all  live  and  move 
and  have  our  being.  And  therefore  our  attitude 
toward  God  cannot  be  different  from  our  atti- 
tude   toward    our    fellow-men.      Judgment,   there- 


108  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

fore,  is  based  on  social  considerations.  This 
was  the  first  principle  of  the  teaching  of  Jesus. 
He  makes  social  sincerity  and  social  service 
everywhere  the  test  of  religious  recognition  and 
religious  worth.  "  I  say  unto  you  that  every 
one  who  is  angry  with  his  brother  shall  be  in 
danger  of  the  judgment;  and  whosoever  shall 
say  to  his  brother,  Raca,  shall  be  in  danger  of 
the  council ;  and  whosoever  shall  say,  Thou  fool, 
shall  be  in  danger  of  the  hell  of  fire.  If,  there- 
fore, thou  art  offering  thy  gift  at  the  altar,  and 
there  rememberest  that  thy  brother  hath  aught 
against  thee,  leave  there  thy  gift  before  the 
altar,  and  go  thy  way,  first  be  reconciled  to 
thy  brother,  and  then  come  and  offer  thy  gift." 
"  For  if  ye  forgive  men  their  trespasses,  your 
heavenly  Father  will  also  forgive  you.  But  if 
ye  forgive  not  men  their  trespasses,  neither  will 
your  Father  forgive  your  trespasses." 

Life  to-day  is  not  so  simple  as  was  the  life  of 
those  to  whom  these  precepts  were  addressed. 
The  administration  of  charity  and  justice,  the 
conduct  of  business,  the  adjustment  to  our  in- 
finitely complex  economic  and  social  conditions, 
render  it  frequently  a  very  difficult  matter  to  see 
just  how  this  principle  of  fraternity  and  charity  and 
mutual  service  should  be  applied.     Even  with   the 


ANTHROPOLOGICAL  109 

kindest  and  most  generous  intent,  we  are  liable  to 
go  sadly  astray.  And  we  are  so  entangled  in  the 
meshes  of  social  arrangements  not  of  our  own 
creating  or  our  own  choosing,  that  often  what  we 
would  we  cannot  do,  without  purchasing  a  par- 
ticular good  at  the  cost  of  much  general  harm. 
The  principle,  however,  is  as  clear  now  as  it  was 
in  Jesus'  day.  And  according  to  that  principle  no 
man  can  be  acceptable  in  the  sight  of  God,  no  man 
is  righteous  in  the  nature  of  things,  who  know- 
ingly and  willingly  permits  any  man  or  woman,  or 
any  class  of  men  and  women,  to  suffer  privation, 
or  degradation,  or  oppression,  or  neglect,  or  injury, 
or  insult,  of  which  directly  or  indirectly  he  is  the 
cause,  or  of  which,  directly  or  indirectly,  without 
disregard  of  nearer  duties,  he  might  contribute  to 
the  cure.  This  socially  serviceable  disposition  is 
the  one  spiritual  quality  which  has  absolute  worth 
in  the  sight  of  God.  He  who  has  that  has  God. 
For  that  is  what  God  is.  God  is  love.  By  this 
principle  husband  and  wife,  father  and  mother, 
brother  and  sister,  son  and  daughter,  are  judged 
in  the  home.  By  this  principle  the  carpenter  is 
judged  at  his  bench  ;  the  merchant  at  his  counter  ; 
the  manufacturer  in  his  factory  ;  the  teacher  in  his 
school-room  ;  the  lawyer  in  his  office  ;  the  physi- 
cian at  the   bedside ;  the  citizen  upon  the  street ; 


IIO  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

the  statesman  in  the  legislative  hall ;  the  ruler  on 
his  throne.  Just  in  so  far  as  in  and  through 
these  concrete  relationships  the  world  is  better  for 
our  being  in  it,  so  far  and  no  farther  do  we  receive 
the  divine  approval.  Just  in  so  far  as  through  our 
laziness,  our  wilful  ignorance,  our  thoughtlessness, 
our  unkindness,  our  inconsiderateness,  our  envy, 
our  pride,  our  avarice,  our  lust,  our  cruelty,  our 
timidity,  our  cowardice,  our  indifference,  the  bur- 
den of  any  fellow-man  is  more  heavy;  the  sorrow 
of  any  human  heart  is  more  bitter ;  the  wrongs  of 
any  social  class  are  more  intolerable ;  and  the  in- 
justice of  any  institution  is  more  cruel  for  any 
word  or  deed  that  we  have  either  said  and  done,  or 
left  unsaid  and  undone,  to  that  extent  we  are 
guilty  before  God,  and  stand  under  his  righteous 
condemnation. 

God's  judgment  consists  in  bringing  a  man  face 
to  face  with  his  own  character.  It  is  not  a  remote 
event  in  the  dim  and  distant  future.  It  is  a  fact 
here  and  now.  The  decision  turns  upon  a  prin- 
ciple which  we  can  understand  perfectly  clearly  : 
and  which  we  can  apply,  each  to  himself.  So 
simple,  so  searching,  so  just,  so  inevitable,  is  the 
judgment  of  God.  Into  the  final  outcome  of  this 
judgment  we  will  not  here  inquire.  It  is  sufficient 
for  the  present  that  we  see  that  it  is  a  reality. 


ANTHROPOLOGICAL  I  I  I 

Our  next  subject  will  be  the  way  of  salvation. 
And  if  judgment  is  the  revealing  of  a  man's  real 
character,  as  determined  by  his  social  spirit,  then 
the  salvation  which  is  to  deliver  him  in  this  judg- 
ment day  must  be  real  and  social  too.  No  legal 
fictions,  no  logical  contrivances,  no  theological 
schemes,  will  meet  the  case.  The  man  who  is 
to  be  judged  righteous  before  that  bar  must  be 
righteous.  Is  it  then  possible  for  man,  sinful  and 
guilty  as  he  is  by  nature  and  by  his  own  volition, 
to  present  before  God  a  face  that  has  no  trace  of 
shame  ;  a  spirit  from  which  every  stain  of  guilt  is 
really  washed  away;  a  soul  against  which  no  fel- 
low-man can  bring  a  valid  charge ;  a  heart  that 
has  no  slightest  fear  of  being  known  by  God  and 
men  precisely  as  it  is  ?  Is  salvation,  like  judg- 
ment, a  fact  so  real,  so  definite,  so  reasonable,  so 
conformable  alike  to  the  character  of  God  and  the 
nature  of  man,  that  we  may  be  just  as  clear  and 
sure  of  salvation  as  we  are  of  judgment  ?  That 
will  be  the  subject  of  the  following  chapter. 


CHAPTER   V 

REPENTANCE    AND    FAITH  —  SALVATION 

If  sin  and  law  and  judgment  were  ultimate  and 
final  facts,  man  would  be  lost  beyond  all  hope  of 
redemption.  If  every  act  became  part  of  an 
irrevocable  character;  if  we  stood  under  a  hard 
and  fast  system  of  rules  and  regulations ;  if  every 
violation  was  visited  with  its  appropriate  condem- 
nation ;  if  there  were  no  possibility  of  change ; 
no  way  of  escape;  no  room  for  mercy,  then  the 
outlook  for  the  individual  and  for  the  race  would 
be  dark  and  foreboding.  And  yet  sin  and  law  and 
judgment  are  stubborn  realities:  they  cannot  be 
toned  down,  or  smoothed  over,  or  explained  away. 
If  there  is  any  redemption  or  salvation  or  de- 
liverance, it  must  redeem  and  save  and  deliver  us 
out  of  these  very  evils  ;  out  of  the  grip  of  sin ;  out 
of  the  clutches  of  violated  law;  out  of  the  teeth 
of  just  condemnation  ;  out  of  the  jaws  of  our  own 
remorse  and  guilt. 

Fortunately,  character,  especially  in  its  earlier 
stages,  is  not  a  fixture.     We  can  change  our  mind. 

112 


ANTHROPOLOGICAL 


113 


We  can  repent.  Appetite  and  passion  may  be  too 
strong  for  us  in  the  moment  of  temptation.  We 
may  yield,  and  do  at  their  imperious  dictation  the 
wretched  act,  of  which  the  moment  after  we  are 
heartily  ashamed.  But  this  very  fact  of  shame  is 
the  prophecy  and  witness  of  better  possibilities. 
It  is  evidence  that  we  are  more  than  mere  creat- 
ures of  appetite  and  passion.  If  the  act  con- 
demned is  our  act,  the  act  of  condemnation  is  our 
own  act  also.  And  in  this  act  of  condemnation 
we  take  sides  with  God  against  the  base  act  which 
we  ourselves  have  done. 

We  may  go  farther,  and  repudiate  the  act.  We 
may  say,  "  Although  I  did  it,  I  will  never  do  the 
like  again.  The  base  act,  to  be  sure,  is  the  ex- 
pression of  what  I  was.  It  does  not  express  what 
I  now  am,  and  what  I  am  determined  to  become." 

When  one  sincerely  repents,  he  is  on  the  sure 
way  to  deliverance.  He  has  already  gone  over  to 
the  side  of  the  law ;  and  the  only  question  that 
remains  is  whether  he  will  be  accepted.  As  Paul 
says,  "  But  if  what  I  would  not,  that  I  do,  I  con- 
sent unto  the  law  that  it  is  good.  So,  now,  it  is 
no  more  I  that  do  it,  but  sin  which  dwelleth  in 
me.  For  I  delight  in  the  law  of  God  after  the 
inward  man  :  but  I  see  a  different  law  in  my  mem- 
bers, warring  against  the  law  of  my  mind,  and 
1 


114  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

bringing  me  into  captivity  under  the  law  of  sin 
which  is  in  my  members.  So  then  I  myself  with 
the  mind  serve  the  law  of  God ;  but  with  the 
flesh  the  law  of  sin." 

The  law  of  God  and  the  law  of  my  mind  in  this 
case  are  at  one,  and  both  are  arrayed  against  the 
law  of  sin  which  is  in  my  members.  Reason  is  no 
longer  the  slave  of  appetite,  but  has  become,  in 
purpose  and  endeavour  at  least,  the  free  servant 
of  God. 

Repentance,  however,  is  only  the  first  step 
toward  salvation.  It  is  not  enough  to  repudiate 
the  evil  we  have  done.  We  must  lay  hold  of  the 
good  we  have  not  yet  attained.  And  this  appre- 
hension of  an  unrealized  goodness,  is  faith.  Man 
can  no  more  keep  evil  out  of  his  heart  by  repent- 
ance and  resolution  not  to  sin  again,  than  he  can 
drive  the  air  out  of  a  room  with  a  fan  and  keep  it 
out  by  shutting  the  door.  Spirit,  no  less  than 
nature,  abhors  a  vacuum.  The  chamber  that  is 
merely  empty,  swept,  and  garnished,  speedily 
becomes  the  abode  of  seven  other  spirits  more  evil 
than  that  which  was  first  cast  out.  The  mind 
must  have  something  to  think  about.  The  will 
must  have  some  motive.  The  heart  must  have 
some  object  of  devotion. 

Faith  is  the  recognition  of  the  Father's  right- 


ANTHROPOLOGICAL  I  15 

eous  will  as  the  ruling  principle  of  conduct :  it  is 
the  acceptance  of  Christ  as  the  supreme  object  of 
affection  and  devotion  :  it  is  the  reception  of  the 
Spirit  as  the  inspirer  and  the  guide  of  life. 

Faith,  therefore,  in  the  religious  sense  of  the 
term,  has  primarily  nothing  to  do  with  doctrinal 
creeds.  Faith  is  a  personal  relation  ;  not  an  intel- 
lectual conviction.  He  who  believes  in  the  Father, 
the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Spirit  has  all  the  faith 
that  is  needful  for  salvation.  Out  of  this  personal 
faith  in  God,  there  will  indeed  develop  new  hopes, 
new  aspirations,  new  fellowships,  new  activities. 
And  the  grounds  and  principles  of  this  divine  life 
may  very  properly  be  precisely  stated  and  logically 
formulated.  Such  statements  and  formulations  of 
the  laws  and  facts  of  the  spiritual  life  are  creeds. 
And  these  creeds,  if  they  are  faithful  to  the  facts 
and  true  to  experience,  are  valuable  aids  to  the 
spiritual  life.  Yet  we  must  be  on  our  guard 
against  putting  the  creed  in  the  place  of  the 
person,  and  confounding  intellectual  assent  to  a 
series  of  propositions  with  spiritual  faith  in  the 
living  God. 

Belief,  in  the  purely  intellectual  sense,  is  inde- 
pendent of  our  wills.  Belief  in  this  sense  is  the 
harmony  of  a  given  proposition  with  all  the  pre- 
viously accepted  propositions  which  make  up  the 


Il6  SOCIAL  THEOLCXiV 

contents  of  our  minds.  What  a  man  believes  in 
this  sense  depends  on  his  early  training,  his 
inherited  prejudices,  his  intellectual  environment. 
The  proposition  which  harmonizes  with  all  the 
other  propositions  in  his  mind  he  must  believe. 
He  cannot  help  it.  The  law  of  intellectual  gravi- 
tation compels  him  to  believe  it.  The  proposition 
which  does  not  harmonize  with  the  conclusions 
already  established  in  his  mind  he  cannot  believe. 
Trying  to  believe  it  will  do  no  good.  Saying  that 
he  believes  it  will  do  much  harm.  It  is  simply 
impossible  to  believe  it  without  intellectual  sui- 
cide. And  neither  the  wiles  of  Satan  nor  the 
grace  of  God  can  make  it  credible. 

People  who  were  trained  a  generation  ago  and 
people  who  are  trained  in  the  critical  methods  of 
the  library  and  the  experimental  methods  of  the 
laboratory  to-day  cannot  think  alike  on  historical 
and  scientific  questions.  To  endeavour  to  impose 
on  the  eager  and  earnest  student  of  to-day  the 
unscientific  and  uncritical  formulations  of  preced- 
ing ages  is  an  insult  to  reason  :  and  he  is  war- 
ranted in  slamming  the  doors  of  his  intelligence 
at  the  first  approach  of  the  dogmatic  inquisitor. 
Blind  belief  is  little  better  than  blind  unbelief. 
Both  are  sure  to  err. 

That    the    world    reveals    one    spiritual    princi- 


ANTIIROPf  JLOGICAL  I  1 7 

pie ;  that  history  contains  one  ideal  character ; 
that  human  life  is  at  least  partially  pervaded  by 
altruistic  motives ;  these  fundamental  facts  no 
candid  citizen  of  a  Christian  community  can 
consistently  deny.  And  these  three  insights, 
rightly  interpreted,  give  a  Father  in  heaven  to 
worship;  a  Son  of  God  to  follow;  a  Holy  Spirit 
to  revere  in  the  hearts  of  others  and  welcome  to 
our  own.  One  who  sees  and  welcomes  so  much 
as  this  is  intellectually  able  to  make  confession  of 
his  faith  in  the  only  formula  the  New  Testament 
prescribes.  Other  truths  are,  indeed,  desirable  for 
instruction  and  edification.  But  to  make  more 
than  this  an  intellectual  test  of  spiritual  fitness 
for  acceptance  with  God  and  fellowship  with  the 
Christian  community  is  an  unwarranted  imperti- 
nence. It  proceeds  on  the  assumption  that  belief 
in  something  more  than  Father,  Son,  and  Holy 
Spirit  is  essential  to  salvation.  Such  zeal  for  the 
amplification  of  intellectual  belief  is  an  unwitting 
confession  of  lack  of  vital  faith  in  God. 

Neither  is  faith  to  be  confounded  with  feeling ; 
or  measured  by  the  amount  of  emotion  that  accom- 
panies it.  Some  feeling,  of  course,  there  must  be 
in  connection  with  Christian  faith.  We  cannot 
see  the  difference  between  right  and  wrong,  be- 
tween the  purity  and  kindness  and  generosity  and 


Il8  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

love  of  Christ,  and  the  uncleanness  and  brutality 
and  cruelty  and  hatefulness  of  sin,  and  remain 
utterly  unmoved.  We  cannot  stand  in  the  midst 
of  the  mighty,  world-historic  conflict,  where  on  the 
one  side  multitudes  of  men  and  women  are  being 
betrayed  and  maltreated  and  plundered  by  the 
sin  of  others,  and  degraded  and  polluted  by  sin  in 
their  own  hearts  ;  and  on  the  other  side  thousands 
and  tens  of  thousands  of  the  best  and  noblest  men 
and  women  the  world  has  produced  are  banded  to- 
gether in  the  name  of  Christ  in  the  endeavour,  first, 
to  banish  sin  from  their  own  hearts  and  lives  and 
then  to  banish  it  from  the  hearts  and  lives  of 
others,  and  so  remove  it  from  the  world  ;  — ■  we 
cannot  stand  emotionless  between  these  contend- 
ing hosts.  We  cannot  fail  to  feel  some  drawing 
out  of  our  hearts  toward  Christ.  Deep  in  the 
real  nature  of  every  rational  being  there  is  a 
sound  core  of  loyalty  to  what  is  right  and  true. 
This  profound  response  and  unswerving  alle- 
giance to  what  is  just  and  true  and  kind  and  good, 
and  to  Christ  as  the  supreme  embodiment  and 
historic  champion  of  truth  and  goodness  in  the 
world,  is  all  the  emotional  accompaniment  that 
is  essential  to  the  reality  of  faith.  This  deep  re- 
sponse of  the  whole  nature  may  not  make  so 
good   a   showing   on    examination ;    but    the    most 


ANTHROPOLOGICAL  I  19 

silent  and  imperceptible  turning  of  the  depths 
of  our  moral  nature  toward  duty,  and  toward 
God  as  the  author  of  duty  and  the  defender  of 
the  right,  is  worth  more  than  whole  tempests  of 
froth  and  foam  on  the  heaving  surface  of  emo- 
tional excitement. 

The  great  question,  after  all,  is  not,  Have  I  a 
love  for  Christ  of  which  I  can  be  conscious  all 
the  time  ?  That  way  lies  discouragement,  de- 
spondency, despair.  Faith  must  lead  the  way  to 
love.  And  the  question  of  faith  is,  rather,  Have 
I  Christ  ?  Whether  with  little  emotion  or  with 
much,  am  I  resolved  that  what  work  I  do  shall 
be  done  in  his  name  ;  what  influence  I  have  shall 
be  cast  on  his  side ;  however  cold  and  dead  my 
emotions  may  become,  however  weak  and  blunder- 
ing my  efforts  may  prove,  such  as  I  am,  I  will  be 
his  ?  If  we  are  thus  resolved  to  serve  him,  we 
already  believe  in  him ;  and  we  shall  come  to  love 
him  in  due  time. 

Faith  again  is  not  to  be  confounded  with  works, 
nor  measured  by  them  ;  though  works  are  the 
ultimate  and  inevitable  fruit  of  faith.  Faith  lays 
hold  on  the  ideal  ;  and  our  works  come  far 
short  of  that.  Faith  is  the  deeper  principle. 
Ideals  are  more  significant  than  facts.  The 
idealism    of  the  heart    rather  than    the    ritualism 


120  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

of  the  hands  is  the  true  expression  of  the  real 
self. 

So  here  again  the  great  question  is  not,  What 
have  I  done  ?  but,  What  am  I  trying  to  do  ?  Three 
men  are  on  a  mountain-side.  The  first  is  only  a 
few  steps  from  the  base  :  the  second  is  half-way 
up  :  the  third  is  within  a  few  steps  of  the  summit. 
Which  of  these  men  is  nearest  the  summit?  "The 
third,  of  course,"  says  every  superficial  observer, 
judging  by  works  alone.  Let  us  look  deeper  at 
the  minds  and  hearts  of  these  three  men.  The  first 
has  his  face  set  resolutely  toward  the  summit, 
and  is  determined  to  press  forward  until  it  shall 
be  reached.  The  second  man  is  undecided,  look- 
ing sometimes  up  and  sometimes  down.  The 
third  has  seen  enough  already  and  is  thinking  of 
descent.  Once  more,  which  of  these  three  men 
is  nearest  the  summit  ?  The  third  is  farthest 
from  it  of  them  all.  Whether  the  second  will 
ever  reach  it  you  cannot  say.  The  first  man  is 
nearest  of  them  all,  for  his  mind  and  will  are  on 
the  heights  already  and  in  due  time  will  bring 
his  body  there. 

Thus  faith  is  mightier  than  works.  The  ideal 
is  more  potent  than  the  real.  Aspiration  is  more 
significant  than  achievement.  As  repentance  is 
the  repudiation  of  the  actual  bad,  so  faith  is  the 


ANTI I ROPO  LOGICAL  !  2 1 

identification  with  the  ideal  good.  Faith  is,  first, 
the  acceptance  of  the  ideal  presented  from  with- 
out in  Christ;  but  it  is  at  the  same  time  the 
promise  and  potency  that  the  ideal  shall  be  real- 
ized and  the  image  of  Christ  reproduced  within 
ourselves.  As  repentance  cancels  the  past,  so  far 
as  we  can  do  it ;  so  faith  affirms  the  future,  so  far 
as  that  lies  in  our  power  :  and  both  alike  appeal 
to  God  to  ratify  our  repentance  by  forgiveness 
and  to  confirm  our  faith  by  its  acceptance. 

This  appeal  of  man  to  God  is  prayer.  Does 
God  listen  to  our  appeal  ?  Does  God  answer 
prayer  ? 

Here  we  are  at  once  confronted  by  the  objec- 
tion of  popular  science.  We  are  told  that  all 
things  are  governed  by  uniform  and  necessary 
laws.  There  are  no  lawless  forces  in  the  world. 
In  the  heavens  above,  in  the  earth  beneath,  in  the 
waters  under  the  earth,  the  scientist  sees  law. 
Law  has  governed  the  evolution  of  plant,  animal, 
and  man.  Laws  of  ethics,  economics,  trade,  art, 
are  unfolding  themselves  before  our  eyes.  We 
all  know  that  our  plumbing  must  conform  to  the 
laws  of  sanitation  ;  our  carpentering  to  the  laws  of 
geometry  ;  our  bridges  to  the  laws  of  physics  ;  our 
navigation  to  the  laws  of  trigonometry ;  our  con- 
duct to  the  laws   of  ethics;   our   business   to   the 


122  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

laws  of  trade.  And  we  are  not  so  simple  as  to 
suppose  that  by  rash  petitions  for  special  interfer- 
ence with  these  laws  of  nature  we  can  avert  the 
consequences  of  disregarding  them.  We  carry  no 
check-book  on  the  bank  of  omnipotence  which 
enables  us  to  get  just  what  we  ask  for  by  simply 
making  out  the  checks  and  presenting  them  in 
proper  form.  There  is  no  room  for  partiality  and 
favouritism  within  this  universe  of  law.  Therefore, 
says  the  scientist,  there  is  no  place  for  prayer. 

Law,  indeed,  is  uniform.  No  sane  man  dreams 
of  changing  it.  Yet  our  wishes,  expressed  to  our 
fellow-men,  accomplish  results.  It  is  a  law  that 
certain  bacilli,  preying  upon  certain  tissues  in  cer- 
tain conditions,  cause  death.  When,  in  these 
conditions,  I  call  in  a  physician  I  do  not  ask  him 
to  change  that  law  in  my  behalf.  I  ask  him  to 
bring  to  bear  other  laws.  I  ask  him  to  introduce 
into  the  problem  the  action  of  certain  chemicals 
upon  the  infected  tissues.  The  introduction  of 
these  new  forces  changes  the  conditions,  and  the 
result  of  the  changed  conditions  is  my  recovery  to 
health.  No  law  has  been  abrogated  or  broken. 
The  physician  brought  not  less  law,  but  more. 
This  is  the  sphere  in  which  will  operates.  It  is 
not  in  the  power  of  God  or  man  to  turn  a  bullet 
from   its   path,   or  a   flash    of   lightning   from    its 


ANTHROPOLOGICAL  l2^ 

course,  or  a  bacillus  from  its  prey,  by  contradict- 
ing the  laws  which   govern    the    action    of   these 
forces,  any  more  than  it  is  in  the  power  of  either 
God  or  man  to  make  two  mountains  with  no  inter- 
vening valley.      It  certainly  is  in  the  power  of  man 
to  determine  to  some  extent  whether  the  action  of 
the  bullet,  the  lightning,  or  the  bacillus  shall  be 
so  combined  with  other  forces  as  to  bring  life  or 
death  to  man.     And  what  is  possible  with  man   is 
not  of  necessity  impossible  with  God.     The  scien- 
tific   objections    to    the    utility  of   prayer   do    not 
touch  the  real  point,  which  is  not  whether  special 
sequences  are  invariable  or  not,  but  whether  the 
coordination  of  these  special   sequences  is  under 
the  control  of  rational  will  or  of  blind  chance. 

That  there  is  room  in  the  world  for  the  effective 
action  of  human  intelligence  without  interference 
with  any  law  whatever,  is  a  fact  established  by 
every  act  of  forethought  which  man  performs. 
That  God  can  answer  prayer,  if  there  be  a  God,  is 
as  little  doubtful  as  that  my  neighbour  can  grant  a 
favour  if  he  hears  my  request.  To  deny  the  possi- 
bility of  answer  to  prayer  is  equivalent  to  denying 
freedom  to  man  and  denying  personality  to  God. 
Between  freedom  and  fate,  between  a  personal 
God  and  blind  chance,  between  faith  in  prayer  and 
trust   to   luck,  we    must    choose.     It    is    only  the 


124  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

short-sighted  and  superficial  mind  that  can  find  a 
resting-place  between  these  two  opinions.  That 
the  Father  gives  the  Holy  Spirit  to  them  that  ask 
him  involves  no  greater  psychological  difficulty, 
and  encounters  no  stronger  scientific  objection, 
than  that  human  parents  give  good  gifts  to  their 
children. 

The  new  psychology  is  teaching  us  that  the  one 
stronghold  of  freedom  is  the  power  of  self-directed 
attention.  Attention  determines  motive,  motive 
determines  act,  and  acts  seal  our  doom.  Whether 
we  give  more  or  less  attention  to  an  object  deter- 
mines the  part  that  object  shall  play  in  our 
character  and  life.  Now,  in  general  terms,  the 
well-being  or  the  misery  of  our  lives,  in  theo- 
logical terms  our  salvation  or  our  damnation, 
depends  upon  whether  those  laws  of  life  which 
are  the  conditions  of  well-being  are  observed  or 
disobeyed.  In  the  more  obvious  and  superficial 
sense  salvation  is  by  works.  The  deeper  question, 
however,  is,  What  determines  a  man's  works  ? 
What  makes  him  obey  or  disobey  these  laws  ? 
Here  is  the  test.  One  man  relies  exclusively  on 
his  past  experience,  his  acquired  training,  his 
established  habits,  to  guide  him  when  particular 
cases  of  conduct  arise.  Another  man  habitually 
recognizes  the   presence  of  the  Infinite  Spirit  who 


ANTHROPOLOGICAL  125 

rules  the  world  by  righteous  laws  ;  habitual!  v 
gives  thanks  for  the  beneficent  fruits  of  this 
divine  working  in  the  world,  and  as  habitually 
surrenders  his  own  will  to  become  the  instrument 
of  the  divine  will  in  so  far  as  that  can  find  expres- 
sion in  his  individual  conduct.  Is  it  not  clear 
that  the  second  man  will  have  the  continuous  con- 
scious presence  of  the  Infinite  Spirit  with  him  to 
a  greater  degree  than  the  first  man  ?  Is  it  not 
clear  that  the  second  man  will  be  found  reverently 
conforming  his  life  to  the  divine  laws  in  those 
sudden  emergencies  which  come  to  us  all  ;  while 
the  first  man  will  more  frequently  be  caught  nap- 
ping and  will  react  from  passion  and  caprice, 
rather  than  from  obedience  and  reverence  for  the 
divine  law  ? 

The  laws  of  individual  well-being  are  divine. 
But  the  laws  of  social  well-being  are,  if  we  may 
so  express  it,  more  divine.  That  is,  they  take 
precedence  of  the  others  when  the  two  conflict. 
The  cholera  germ,  the  tiger,  the  savage,  fulfil 
the  laws  of  their  individual  being.  Civilized 
man  is  called  upon  to  do  more.  Not  the  laws 
of  his  individual  well-being  alone,  but  the  laws  of 
social  well-being  as  well  are  entrusted  to  his  care 
and  keeping.  Profoundly  apprehended,  these  two 
laws     are   -doubtless    one.       Yet    this     profound 


126  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

apprehension  of  the  identity  of  individual  and 
social  interest  is  just  what  is  hard  to  secure 
and  maintain  at  the  moment  of  action.  To  the 
natural  man  these  laws  seem  of  very  unequal 
urgency.  God's  will  includes  them  both.  And 
the  man  whose  will  is  constantly  and  habitually 
offered  in  prayerful  surrender  to  the  will  of  God 
cannot  fail  to  acquire  a  settled  disposition  to  give 
due  weight  to  social  obligations  as  against  private 
interests,  which  would  be  lacking  to  the  same  man 
were  he  withdrawn  from  this  spiritual  fellowship 
with  God.  The  general  disposition  will  find  expres- 
sion in  particular  acts ;  and  the  answer  to  his  habitual 
prayers  will  come  in  the  fruitfulness  of  righteous 
deeds  and  holy  influences  which  could  have  gone 
forth  only  from  a  mind  and  heart  constantly  united 
by  prayer  to  the  thought  and  will  of  God. 

In  things  so  subtle  as  the  relations  of  motive 
to  act,  of  character  to  conduct,  it  will  be  as  impos- 
sible to  trace  precise  sequences  of  cause  and  effect 
in  the  majority  of  cases  as  it  is  to  find  the  particu- 
lar rays  of  sunshine  and  drops  of  rain  and  atoms 
of  fertilizer  again  in  the  particular  kernels  of  the 
ripened  grain.  The  farmer  who  should  boast  of 
his  ability  to  trace  such  connection  would  be  set 
down  for  a  fraud,  and  the  man  who  should  expect 
him  to  do  it  would  be  regarded  as  a  fool. 


ANTHROPOLOGICAL  1 27 

Nor  is  the  answer  to  prayer  due  simply  to  the 
reflex  action  of  his  own  effort  upon  the  man  who 
prays.  The  God  of  Christian  faith  ;  the  God 
revealed  in  Jesus  Christ,  and  manifested  in  the 
continued  presence  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  is  not  a 
purely  transcendent  being,  outside  of  the  world 
and  remote  from  men,  like  the  gods  of  Epicurus, 
who  "repose  on  blissful  seats,  which  never  winds 
assail  nor  rain-clouds  sprinkle  with  their  showers, 
nor  snow  falling  white  with  hoary  frost  doth 
buffet,  but  cloudless  ether  ever  wraps  them  round, 
beaming  in  broad  diffusion  of  glorious  light.  For 
nature  supplies  their  every  want,  nor  aught  im- 
pairs their  peace  of  soul."  The  immanent  God, 
revealed  in  history,  and  present  in  human  society 
to-day,  is  by  his  very  nature  "a  prayer-hearing 
and  a  prayer-answering  God."  Prayer  is  not  a 
mere  petition  projected  into  empty  space.  Prayer 
is  communion.  It  is  fellowship.  Prayer  lays  hold 
on  God  ;  apprehends  afresh  the  mind  of  Christ  ; 
opens  the  heart  to  receive  the  Holy  Spirit.  The 
attempt  to  cheat  God  by  using  him  as  a  means  to 
the  gratification  of  our  private  whims  and  ca- 
prices is  doubtless  futile.  God  is  not  mocked. 
Eliminate  from  prayer  all  its  spiritual  signifi- 
cance and  reality  ;  reduce  it  to  a  mere  device 
for  getting  what  one  happens  to  want  by  simply 


128  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

going  through  a  verbal  form  :  and  then  it  is  easy- 
enough,  without  much  show  of  scientific  learn- 
ing or  any  invocation  of  the  aid  of  natural  law,  to 
demonstrate  that  such  prayer  is  futile  and  absurd. 
That  prayer  can  be  seriously  discussed  on  this 
low  plane  ;  that  men  of  sense  can  impute  to  other 
men  of  sense  such  crude  and  childish  notions  of 
spiritual  things,  reveals  the  sad  pass  to  which 
deistic  traditions  have  brought  the  religious  think- 
ing of  our  times. 

Prayer  which  makes  immediate,  particular,  mate- 
rial things  the  end,  and  God  simply  the  means  of 
getting  them,  fails  as  it  deserves  to.  It  does  not 
come  into  communion  with  God.  It  is  not  prayer. 
And  it  is  not  answered  because  it  is  not  prayer. 

Once  recognize  that  prayer  is  the  communion 
of  man  with  a  living  God,  revealed  in  Christ  and 
present  in  the  world  as  the  Spirit  inspiring  every 
worthy  form  of  social  life,  and  then  it  becomes 
perfectly  evident  that  every  prayer  must  bring  its 
appropriate  and  objective  and  positive  and  helpful 
answer.  When  I  read  a  book,  and  get  information 
from  it,  I  do  not  attribute  that  information  to  the 
reflex  influence  upon  myself  of  the  effort  which  I 
put  forth  in  the  act  of  reading.  In  reading  I  put 
myself  into  communication  with  the  mind  of  the 
author.     When  I  talk  with  a  friend,  and  am  made 


ANTH  ROPOLOGICAL  1 29 

better  by  it,  I  do  not  credit  my  improved  condition 
to  the  reflex  influence  of  my  own  effort  at  conver- 
sation. Prayer  is  communion  with  the  thought 
and  will  of  God.  And  the  answer  to  prayer  is 
from  him  ;  not  from  ourselves.  The  man  who 
communes  with  God  will  grow  to  be  like  him. 
The  man  who  takes  his  perplexities  and  problems 
and  temptations  to  God  in  prayer  will  receive 
from  God  light  and  help  and  strength,  which  he 
could  receive  from  no  other  source. 

Answer  to  prayer  belongs  not  to  the  realm  of 
magic  and  miracle ;  but  lies  clearly  within  the 
sphere  of  causality  and  law.  Prayer  lifts  the 
desires  of  the  individual  up  into  their  larger  rela- 
tions to  the  will  of  God  :  and  it  brings  them  back, 
purified  by  contact  with  his  holy  and  higher  pur- 
pose, and  strengthened  and  confirmed  by  his  appro- 
val and  sympathy. 

When  Peter  and  Zacchaeus  and  Nicodemus 
came  to  Jesus  when  he  was  on  earth,  confessed  to 
him  their  sins  and  shortcomings,  their  perplexities 
and  doubts,  they  went  away  from  the  interview 
wiser  and  better  men.  Christ  is  not  dead.  His 
Spirit  is  not  withdrawn  from  the  world.  In  the 
Holy  Scriptures,  in  Christian  institutions,  in  the 
hearts  and  lives  of  his  followers,  in  the  teaching 
of  the  church  and  the  training  given  by  Christian 

K 


130  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

parents  to  their  children,  Christ  is  a  living  pres- 
ence, a  positive  force  in  the  world  to-day.  Prayer 
is  the  communion  of  the  spirit  of  man  with  this 
ever-present  Spirit  of  Christ ;  and  is  as  real  and 
objective  a  communion,  and  brings  as  real  and 
definite  an  answer,  as  did  the  communion  of  the 
early  disciples  with  their  Master  when  he  was 
present  with  them  in  the  flesh. 

The  current  misconceptions  of  prayer  are  chiefly 
due  to  an  excessive  emphasis  upon  mere  specific 
petition,  and  a  corresponding  neglect  of  the  ele- 
ments of  thanksgiving,  praise,  fellowship,  and 
communion.  Petition  for  specific  and  definite 
material  benefits  occupies  as  subordinate  a  place 
in  true  spiritual  prayer,  as  the  prediction  of  pre- 
cise future  events  occupied  in  Hebrew  prophecy. 
Intimate  and  intense  appreciation  of  the  spiritual 
purposes  of  God  did  incidentally  enable  these 
ancient  seers  to  forecast  the  trend  of  national 
affairs  and  the  tendency  of  historical  development. 
And  in  like  manner  loving  surrender  to  the  will  of 
God  and  the  mind  of  Christ  not  infrequently 
carries  material  as  well  as  spiritual  blessings  in 
its  train.  If  we  seek  first  the  kingdom  of  God 
and  his  righteousness,  many  other  things  will  be 
added  unto  us.  But  if  we  seek  these  other  things 
first,  we  miss  the  kingdom  and  the  righteousness, 


ANTHROPOLOGICAL  131 

and  with  the  loss  of  these  we  lose  also  the  mate- 
rial blessings  which  these  carry  in  their  train. 

Prayer  is  as  welcome  to  God  as  it  is  indispen- 
sable to  man.  For  God  does  not  work  without 
means.  He  does  not  thrust  reforms  upon  the 
world  before  the  world  is  ready  to  receive  them. 
The  desires  and  petitions  of  individual  hearts  and 
united  congregations  are  the  signs  by  which  the 
Spirit  recognizes  the  fulness  of  time  for  a  spirit- 
ual and  social  advance. 

Prayer,  of  course,  is  not  a  substitute  for  effort. 
Indeed  the  chief  form  in  which  answer  to  prayer 
is  manifest  is  increased  effort  on  the  part  of  our- 
selves and  others  ;  and  renewed  courage  and  con- 
fidence in  the  utility  of  effort.  Prayer  is  always 
possible.  Work  is  not.  God  is  always  near ; 
though  others  be  far  away.  Work  meets  delays 
obstacles,  discouragements.  Prayer  moves  in  the 
sphere  ot  pure,  unobstructed  will.  Hence,  while 
all  other  forms  of  expression  are  outwardly  con- 
ditioned, intermittent,  fitful  ;  prayer  is  steady, 
patient,  persistent,  and  never  despairs. 

Prayer  is  the  appointed  means  by  which  the  will 
of  the  individual  becomes  emancipated  from  its 
finitude  and  isolation,  and  becomes  consciously 
united  to  the  large  and  noble  purposes  of  God. 
It  is  spiritually  the  most  elevating,  intellectually 


132  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

the  most  broadening,  socially  the  most  expanding, 
morally  the  most  quickening,  practically  the  most 
profitable  exercise  in  which  man  can  engage. 
And  when  once  we  have  emancipated  ourselves 
from  the  deistic  notion  of  a  far-away  God  ;  when 
once  we  have  learned  to  think  of  him  as  real 
with  at  least  as  much  reality  as  the  wills  of  men 
and  the  forces  of  society,  we  shall  recognize  that 
answer  to  prayer,  provided  that  it  really  is  prayen 
is  just  as  certain  and  inevitable  as  that  an  ade- 
quate  cause  must  produce  its  appropriate  effect. 

God  rules  the  world  by  law  ;  and  those  laws  are 
inexorable.  The  physical  consequences  of  sin  — 
the  disease,  the  poverty,  the  pain  —  follow  as  inva- 
riably as  fire  burns  and  water  flows.  The  social 
consequences  also  the  sinner  cannot  escape.  The 
man  who  has  lied  will  be  despised  ;  the  man  who 
has  stolen  will  be  distrusted  ;  the  man  who  has 
been  cruel  will  be  hated ;  regardless  of  his  subse- 
quent repentance.  The  world,  except  it  be  trans- 
formed by  the  Spirit  of  Christ,  is  as  hard  and 
merciless  and  relentless  to  the  sinner  as  is  nature 
herself. 

In  early  times  men  naturally  interpreted  God 
in  terms  of  their  own  moral  ideals.  And  their 
gods  were  cruel,  arbitrary,  and  unforgiving  beings. 
It  is  a  late  stage  of    human  development  which 


ANTHROPOLOGICAL  1 33 

begins  to  question,  "  Tantane  anitnis  cazlcstibus 
irce?" 

Even  Christianity  has  found  it  hard  to  believe 
the  full  gospel  of  its  Master  on  this  point.  And  it 
has  borrowed  its  conceptions  of  the  divine  govern- 
ment more  from  the  civil  governments  of  the  an- 
cient world  than  from  the  parables  and  precepts 
and  actions  of  its  Lord.  As  long  as  the  Greek  or 
Roman  could  trace  even-handed  justice  in  archon 
or  emperor,  they  had  such  reason  to  be  thankful 
that  to  have  asked  for  more  would  have  seemed  an 
impertinence.  And  consequently  they  thought 
of  God  as  a  world-governor,  and  ascribed  to  him 
justice  as  his  highest  attribute.  For  justice  in 
matters  political  and  social  was  the  highest  ideal 
of  the  ancient  world. 

But  since  the  revolutions  in  America  and  France, 
the  rise  of  constitutional  liberty  in  England,  and 
the  spread  of  democratic  doctrine  everywhere,  men 
have  come  more  and  more  to  recognize  that  right 
derives  its  content  and  meaning  from  the  good 
which  lies  beyond  it  as  its  end  and  aim  ;  justice 
is  compelled  to  justify  itself  by  the  proof  of  its 
beneficence ;  and  the  right  of  human  kings  and 
lords  is  respected  only  in  so  far  as  it  promotes 
the  well-being  of  their  subjects  and  dependents. 
What  wonder,  then,  that  this  same  tendency  and 


134  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

spirit,  applied  to  theology,  appeals  from  the  justice 
to  the  love  of  God,  and  calls  him  no  longer  Gov- 
ernor but  Father,  as  Jesus  taught  men  to  do. 

The  conception  of  the  Father  to  which  we  were 
led  in  our  first  chapter,  as  the  absolute  thought 
which  holds  all  things  and  all  men  in  their  true 
relations,  shows  that  he  must  condemn  sin  ;  for 
sin  is  the  flat  contradiction  of  that  truth  which  the 
divine  thought  perceives  and  of  that  order  which 
the  divine  will  affirms.  To  condemn  a  sinner, 
because  of  his  sin,  to  more  misery  than  the  direct 
consequences  of  his  sin  involve ;  to  keep  him  in 
condemnation  and  punishment  after  he  had  re- 
pented of  his  sin,  and  was  trying  to  overcome  it, 
would  be  the  act  not  of  a  Father  but  of  a  brute ; 
not  of  a  God  but  of  a  devil.  It  would  be  an  act, 
not  of  truth  and  light  and  love,  but  of  falsehood 
and  darkness  and  malignity.  A  being  capable  of 
that  could  not  command  even  the  respect  of  the 
average  man  to-day  ;  much  less  obtain  the  worship 
of  the  holiest  and  best.  This  belief  in  the  mercy 
and  forgiveness  and  grace  of  God  is  not  a  piece 
of  sentimentalis'm,  which  argues  that  because  we 
would  like  to  be  forgiven,  therefore  God  must  do 
it.  It  is  a  transparent  truth  of  reason  ;  which 
affirms  that  the  confounding  of  the  man  and  his 
act,  in  spite  of  repentance  and  aspiration  and  en- 


ANTHROPOLOGICAL  1 35 

deavour  to  do  better,  would  be  an  act  of  blindness 
unworthy  of  short-sighted  man,  and  therefore  im- 
possible to  the  omniscient  God.  It  is  grounded 
not  on  what  we  would  like  to  have  done  to  us  ;  but 
on  what  we  ourselves  would  be  willing  to  do  to  an- 
other. We  believe  in  the  mercy  of  God,  because 
we  cannot  worship  in  God  what  we  despise  in  men  ; 
because  we  cannot  exclude  from  our  thought  of 
him  what  is  best  and  noblest  in  ourselves. 

The  grace  of  God  is  so  transparent  and  self- 
evident  a  principle  to-day  that  the  marvel  is  that 
any  one  can  doubt  it.  It  is  only  the  savage,  and 
the  civilized  man  who  has  drawn  his  conceptions 
of  God  from  a  semi-barbarous  antiquity,  who 
denies  it. 

Yet  we  owe  this  revelation  of  the  grace  of  God 
to  noble  men  like  the  authors  of  the  second  por- 
tion of  Isaiah  and  of  the  book  of  Jonah,  who  first 
proclaimed  it  to  the  hard  hearts  of  unbelieving 
men.  We  owe  it,  above  all,  to  Jesus  Christ,  who 
revealed  it  in  the  compassion  and  pity  and  for- 
giveness with  which  he  met  all  forms  of  penitence 
and  faith  ;  who  taught  it  in  the  matchless  para- 
bles of  the  unmerciful  servant  and  the  prodigal 
son,  in  the  precept  "  Until  seventy  times  seven," 
and  in  the  petition,  "  Forgive  us  our  trespasses 
as  we  forgive    those    that    trespass    against    us "  ; 


136  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

who  sealed  it  by  the  prayer  upon  the  cross, 
"  Father,  forgive  them,  for  they  know  not  what 
they  do."  This  revelation  of  forgiveness  and 
grace  is  the  central  and  crowning  message  of 
Christianity.  "  For  the  law  was  given  by  Moses  ; 
grace  and  truth  came  by  Jesus  Christ." 

God  cannot  change.  As  Christ  revealed  him, 
so  eternally  he  is.  The  time  can  never  come 
when  God  will  refuse  forgiveness  to  a  repentant 
soul.  That  souls  may  sink  so  low  and  become 
so  dead  as  to  find  no  place  for  repentance  is, 
indeed,  possible  and  probable.  But  that  God 
should  sink  so  low  as  to  find  no  place  in  his 
heart  for  forgiveness,  —  this  is  simply  inconceiv- 
able. God  cherishes  to  the  last  his  gracious 
purpose  of  redemption ;  and  stands  ready  to 
welcome  with  open  arms  and  robe  and  ring 
every  returning  prodigal,  who  in  any  far-off 
time  or  place  shall  find  himself  morally  and  spirit- 
ually able  to  leave  his  sin  and  shame  behind  him, 
and  come  back  to  his  Father  and  his  home. 

In  all  grace  and  forgiveness  there  is  a  wondrous 
mingling  of  suffering  and  joy.  There  is  more 
trouble  and  labour  involved  in  seeking  and  finding 
the  one  lost  sheep  than  in  guarding  the  ninety 
and  nine  that  went  not  astray.  And  yet  there 
is   more  joy   over   the  recovery   of  the  one,  than 


ANTHROPOLOGICAL 


m 


over  the  security  of  all  the  rest.  The  life  of 
Christ,  as  the  supreme  manifestation  of  the  grace 
of  God,  was  of  necessity  a  life  pre-eminent  in 
suffering  and  sorrow.  For  in  sympathy  and  pity 
and  helpfulness  and  love  he  took  upon  himself 
the  infirmities  and  sorrows,  the  guilt  and  sin  of 
the  men  to  whom  he  ministered  and  of  the  world 
he  came  to  save.  Had  he  been  less  faithful  to 
the  truth,  less  eager  to  reveal  God's  saving  grace 
to  men  ;  he  might  have  lived  an  untroubled  life 
in  the  midst  of  a  select  circle  of  admiring:  dis- 
ciples.  But  it  was  the  sick  not  the  whole  whom 
he  sought  to  heal  ;  the  sinner  and  not  the  right- 
eous whom  he  came  to  save.  And  in  loyalty  to 
this  divine  mission  of  grace,  in  fidelity  to  this 
human  service  of  sympathy  and  love,  he  exposed 
himself  to  the  envy  and  jealousy  and  avarice  and 
hypocrisy  and  malignity  and  hate  of  which  the 
world  was  full  and  underneath  which  humanity  lay 
crushed  and  bruised  and  bleeding.  "  Surely  he 
hath  borne  our  griefs  and  carried  our  sorrows. 
He  was  wounded  for  our  transgressions,  he  was 
bruised  for  our  iniquities  :  the  chastisement  of 
our  peace  was  upon  him  ;  and  with  his  stripes  we 
are  healed." 

All  this  he  bore,  not  to  offer  a  ransom  to  the 
devil,  nor,  what  is  the  modern  equivalent  of  that 


138  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

ancient  theory,  to  appease  an  angry  God.  All 
this  he  suffered,  not  to  vindicate  the  majesty  of 
the  divine  law,  or  to  uphold  the  dignity  of  the 
divine  government.  For  neither  the  law  nor  the 
government  of  God  are  so  feeble  and  so  in  need  of 
external  props  as  these  theories  assume.  All  this 
he  endured  simply  because  it  is  in  the  nature  of 
love  to  identify  itself  with  its  object.  To  love  a 
good  man  is  to  rejoice  in  and  share  all  the  glory 
and  the  gladness  that  his  goodness  sheds  about  him. 
To  love  a  bad  man  is  to  suffer  with  and  to  share  all 
the  shame  and  pain  his  badness  brings  upon  him. 
God  loves  bad  men.  Christ  came  to  bring  God's 
love  to  a  wicked  world.  And  that  is  why  he  was 
compelled  to  live  a  life  of  suffering  and  die  an 
ignominious  death. 

Thanks  to  the  love  of  the  Father,  thanks  to  the 
grace  of  Christ,  every  man  who  in  sincerity  repents 
of  his  sins  and  looks  to  God  for  help  to  live  the 
righteous  life  is  sure  of  immediate  acceptance  and 
complete  forgiveness.  He  will  still  suffer  much 
from  the  avenging  laws  of  a  violated  nature  ;  for 
a  long  time  he  will  suffer  more  from  the  suspicion 
and  hatred  of  hard  human  hearts  ;  but  from  the 
moment  he  truly  repents  and  gives  his  heart  to 
God  for  forgiveness  and  guidance  and  control,  he 
is  admitted  with  the  full  privileges  of  sonship  into 


ANTHROPOLOGICAL  1 39 

the  household  of  faith  and  the  family  of  God. 
From  that  moment  he  is  a  child  of  the  Father,  a 
friend  of  Christ,  and  a  candidate  for  the  life  of 
the  Spirit. 

By  grace,  through  faith,  based  on  repentance, 
we  receive  the  assurance  of  salvation.  We  do 
not  save  ourselves.  There  is  in  man  the  capacity 
for  the  divine  life,  an  ability  to  respond  to  the 
divine  ideal  when  once  that  is  presented.  But 
unless  this  ideal  comes  home  to  man,  rousing  and 
quickening  this  capacity  into  life,  the  soul  remains 
dormant  awhile,  and  then  succumbs  to  decay  and 
death  like  an  implanted,  unsunned,  unwatered 
seed.  The  presentation  of  the  divine  ideal  there- 
fore is  the  efficient  cause  of  man's  salvation. 
God's  effectual  calling  precedes  man's  successful 
choosing.  It  is  by  the  winsomeness  and  attrac- 
tiveness of  the  divine  ideal,  presented  to  our  wills 
and  accepted  by  them,  that  we  are  saved.  How, 
then,  is  the  presentation  of  this  divine  ideal  made 
to  man  ?  The  depth  and  breadth  of  any  system 
of  theology  may  be  tested  by  its  answer  to  that 
question. 

The  divine  ideal  of  human  life,  the  Logos,  the 
Holy  Spirit,  has  never  been  without  witness  in 
the  world,  and  is  not  far  from  any  one  of  us. 
Every  natural  object  is  the  creation  and  expression 


140  SOCIAL   THEOLOGY 

of  the  Eternal  Reason  ;  every  righteous  law  and 
beneficent  institution  of  society  is  the  embodiment 
of  the  Divine  Spirit  ;  and  every  fellow-man  is  in 
his  inherent  capacity  and  dignity  the  image  of 
God. 

The  call  of  God,  the  presentation  of  the  divine 
ideal  of  human  life,  consequently  may  come 
through  any  or  all  of  these  its  manifold  embodi- 
ments. It  is  not  a  ghost-like  apparition,  robed  in 
a  shroud  of  mystery,  entering  unannounced  some 
secret  presence-chamber  of  the  soul,  when  all  the 
doors  of  sense  are  closed,  and  all  the  avenues 
of  reason  are  barred  by  superstitious  fear  and 
bolted  by  blind  credulity. 

The  call  of  God  is  the  outward,  visible,  tangible 
appeal  of  the  divine  goodness  and  glory  and  love 
and  truth,  as  it  comes  home  to  man's  heart 
through  the  love  of  father  and  mother,  the  noble- 
ness of  brothers,  the  tenderness  of  sisters,  the 
sweet  charities  of  family  and  home,  the  purity 
and  gentleness  of  woman,  the  honour  and  bravery 
of  man,  the  call  of  country,  the  majesty  of  law, 
the  grandeur  of  mountain  and  sea,  the  glory  of 
sunlit  clouds  and  starry  skies,  the  solemn  rites  of 
temple  service,  the  spoken  word  of  pious  exhorta- 
tion, the  attitude  of  silent  prayer,  the  written 
Book  of  special  revelation,  —  the  old,  old  story  of 


ANTiiknh  )[.<  >GI<  \i  141 

the  words  and  deeds,  the  life  and  death  of  him 
who  was  at  once  Son  of  man  and  Son  of  God. 

In  these  voices  of  nature  and  humanity,  whereby 
we  are  called  away  from  the  selfish,  sensual,  sinful 
life,  God  is  present  in  different  degrees  of  fulness 
and  completeness.  Response  to  any  one  of  these 
calls  is  a  step  toward  salvation.  And  the  degree 
and  fulness  of  the  salvation  thereby  attained  is 
proportioned  to  the  degree  and  fulness  of  that  rev- 
elation of  the  divine  to  which  the  response  is 
given.  The  love  of  father,  mother,  wife,  and  child, 
the  love  of  nature  and  of  native  land,  devotion  to 
science  or  to  art,  are  of  divine  origin,  and  have 
divine  potency  to  lift  man  out  of  that  exclusive 
selfishness  which  is  the  soul  of  sin. 

Yet  they  reach  and  redeem  only  parts  of  the 
man.  They  do  not  take  the  whole  man  on  all 
sides  and  in  all  relations,  up  into  that  blessed  life 
of  love  which  is  salvation.  The  salvation  wrought 
by  these  agencies,  though  real  as  far  as  it  goes, 
is  incomplete.  The  man  who  feels  the  noble 
stirrings  of  human  affection  in  his  breast  is  not 
wholly  dead  in  trespasses  and  sins.  Nor  have  we 
therein  the  guarantee  that  he  has  entered  wholly 
into  life.  Life  and  death  may  be  striving  together 
in  him,  and  the  issue  may  still  be  doubtful.  Re- 
sponse to  one  of  these  divine  voices  does  not  in- 


142  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

sure  a  like  response  to  all  the  rest.  It  is  at  most 
a  ground  of  hope.  And  yet,  how  often  is  that 
hope  betrayed  !  Have  we  not  seen  men  so  alive 
to  natural  beauty  that  they  could  seize  and  make 
immortal  the  fading  glory  of  a  sunset,  who  were 
yet  so  far  dead  to  the  diviner  beauty  of  the  human 
heart  that  they  could  betray  to  lasting  wretched- 
ness and  shame  a  woman's  trusting  love  ?  Have 
we  not  seen  a  devotion  to  wife  and  children  truly 
divine,  existing  in  the  same  breast  with  fiendish 
treachery  toward  business  associates  and  heartless 
betrayal  of  creditors  ?  Have  we  not  seen  patriot- 
ism and  pollution,  zeal  for  a  great  cause  and  con- 
tempt for  humble  men,  the  love  of  truth  and  the 
hate  of  duty,  stamped  on  the  same  features,  ani- 
mating the  same  heart,  and  struggling  for  control 
of  the  same  life  ? 

Just  so  far  as  one  is  faithful  to  these  human 
loves  and  duties,  his  soul  will  be  ripened  and  ex- 
panded by  them  into  fuller  love  and  larger  life, 
and  receptiveness  for  more  of  God.  In  so  far  as 
he  is  false,  and  betrays  any  of  these  human  claims, 
to  that  extent  the  forces  of  death  are  gaining  over 
the  powers  of  life  within  him. 

That  man  alone  who,  not  by  the  hearing  of  the 
ear  nor  by  the  speaking  of  the  lips  merely,  but  by 
the  assent  of  his  heart  and  the  devotion  of  his  will, 


ANTHROPOLOGICAL  1 43 

has  made  Jesus  Christ  his  personal  ideal  ;  who  has 
made  Christ's  law  of  love  his  principle  of  life  ;  who 
day  by  day  strives  to  follow  him,  and  asks  and 
receives  forgiveness  for  all  wherein  he  falls  short 
of  that  divine  ideal ;  —  that  man  alone  is  sure  of 
salvation  here  and  now,  always  and  everywhere. 

Not  that  his  life  is  lifted  all  at  once  to  the  level 
of  his  ideal.  As  we  shall  see  in  the  next  chapter, 
the  divine  life  is  a  slow  and  gradual  growth.  "We 
are  saved  by  hope."  And  yet  the  intelligent  and 
whole-souled  acceptance  of  Christ  and  his  grace, 
by  faith  and  love,  is  the  promise  and  potency  of  a 
complete  and  perfect  triumph  over  every  form  of 
selfishness  and  sin,  and  an  abundant  entrance  into 
eternal  life.  For  sincere  devotion  to  him  means 
that  his  ideal  becomes  our  ideal ;  his  life  our  life. 
And  since  his  ideal  and  life  is  nothing  less  than 
the  comprehensive  will  of  God  and  the  complete 
devotion  to  the  service  of  man,  it  follows  that 
every  true  disciple  of  Christ  is  in  principle  and  at 
heart  faithful  to  every  duty,  loyal  to  every  rela- 
tionship, devoted  to  every  cause,  friendly  to  every 
person,  the  supporter  of  every  institution  in  and 
through  which  the  divine  goodness  is  made  mani- 
fest to  men ;  and  will  continue  faithful  to  whatever 
new  forms  of  goodness  and  love  the  future  may 
unfold. 


144  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

The  raw  material  of  appetite  and  passion,  the 
primitive  instincts  of  self-preservation  and  self- 
assertion,  are  not  all  at  once  worked  over  into 
spiritual  gifts  and  Christian  graces.  Repentance, 
faith,  and  grace  bring  God  and  man  into  right 
relations  ;  and  thereby  give  complete  assurance  of 
ultimate  salvation.  The  actual  working  out  of 
this  union  is  the  function  of  the  Spirit,  and  will 
form  the  subject  of  the  following  chapter. 

The  thought  of  God  as  an  arbitrary,  external 
Ruler  created  artificial  difficulties  in  the  way  of 
the  divine  forgiveness  which  required  equally  arbi- 
trary and  artificial  schemes  for  their  reconciliation. 
When  once  we  grasp  the  thought  of  God  as  the 
Universal  Will  whose  aim  is  the  well-being  of  all 
his  children  and  the  development  of  the  perfect 
social  order,  then  instantly  we  see  that  the  free 
grace  of  God,  and  the  full  forgiveness  of  every 
repentant  and  contrite  heart,  is  not  an  afterthought 
and  a  contrivance  of  the  divine  ingenuity,  but  is 
a  necessary  outcome  of  the  divine  nature.  It  is 
impossible  for  God  not  to  forgive  a  sinner  the 
instant  he  repents  ;  for  not  to  forgive  is  not  to 
love,  and  that  is  impossible  with  God.  An  unfor- 
giving spirit  is  the  one  unforgivable  sin  in  man  ; 
and  surely  we  cannot  attribute  that  to  God.  God, 
indeed,  hates  sin  with  bitter,  uncompromising  hate  ; 


ANTHROPOLOGICAL  1 45 

but  that  is  because  sin  is  injurious  to  the  men 
whom  God  loves,  and  is  inconsistent  with  that 
social  ideal  of  mutual  helpfulness  and  good-will 
which  he  is  seeking  to  develop  among  men.  But 
the  moment  a  man  renounces  his  sin,  he  at  once 
becomes  acceptable  to  God  ;  both  for  what  he  is 
in  himself,  and  for  the  social  service  he  is  now 
for  the  first  time  prepared  to  render.  As  Pro- 
fessor Royce  has  expressed  it,  "  The  One  Will  must 
conquer.  The  one  aim  is  stern  to  its  steadfast 
enemies,  but  it  is  infinitely  regardful  of  all  the 
single  aims,  however  they  may  seem  wayward,  that 
can  at  last  find  themselves  subdued  and  yet  real- 
ized in  its  presence,  and  so  conformed  to  its  will. 
All  these  rivulets  of  purpose,  however  tiny,  all 
these  strong  floods  of  passion,  however  angry,  it 
desires  to  gather  into  the  surging  tides  of  its  in- 
finite ocean,  that  nothing  may  be  lost  that  con- 
sents to  enter.  The  One  Will  is  no  one-sided  will. 
It  desires  the  realization  of  all  possible  life,  how- 
ever rich,  strong,  ardent,  courageous,  manifold  such 
life  may  be,  if  only  this  life  can  enter  into  that 
highest  unity.  All  that  has  will  is  sacred  to  it, 
save  in  so  far  as  any  will  refuses  to  join  with  the 
others  in  the  song  and  shout  of  the  Sons  of  God. 
Its  warfare  is  never  intolerance,  its  demand  for 
submission  is  never  tyranny,  its  sense  of  the  excel- 

L 


146  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

lence  of  its  own  unity  is  never  arrogance  ;  for  its 
warfare  is  aimed  at  the  intolerance  of  the  separate 
selves,  its  yoke  is  the  yoke  of  complete  organic 
freedom,  its  pride  is  the  perfect  development  of 
all  life.  When  we  serve  it,  we  must  sternly  cut 
off  all  that  life  in  ourselves  or  in  others  that  can- 
not ultimately  conform  to  the  universal  will ;  but 
we  have  nothing  but  love  for  every  form  of  sentient 
existence  that  can  in  any  measure  express  this 
Will." 

From  the  social  point  of  view  sin  is  deadly  :  be- 
cause it  is  selfish  and  anti-social.  Law  is  stern 
and  remorseless  :  because  it  is  the  indispensable 
condition  of  social  well-being.  Judgment  is  search- 
ing and  severe  :  because  every  trace  of  selfishness 
and  insincerity  must  be  sifted  and  burned  out  of 
human  hearts  before  the  perfect  society  can  come. 
And  on  the  other  hand,  from  this  same  social 
point  of  view,  the  true  penitent  is  absolutely  sure 
of  immediate  acceptance  with  the  Father  :  because 
his  penitence  is  the  renunciation  of  his  anti-social 
attitude.  His  feeble  faith  and  faint  aspiration  is 
at  once  clothed  in  the  garments  of  that  perfect 
social  righteousness  which  he  now  accepts  as  the 
ideal  of  character  and  the  aim  of  conduct.  His 
eleventh-hour  service  is  equally  rewarded  with  the 
longer  labour  of  those  who  have  borne  the  heat 


ANTHROPOLOGICAL  1 47 

and  burden  of  the  day  :  because  the  spirit  of  ser- 
vice and  not  the  length  of  labour  or  the  quantity 
of  work  is  the  essential  test  of  fitness  for  the  new 
life  on  which  he  enters,  and  the  divine  society  of 
which  he  becomes  a  member.  The  grace  of  God 
is  as  full  and  free  as  his  judgment  is  searching  and 
severe.  The  salvation  of  the  man  who  repents  is 
as  sure  and  certain  as  is  the  condemnation  of  the 
man  who  persists  in  selfishness  and  sin.  The  rea- 
son why  men  are  called  on  everywhere  to  repent, 
or  change  from  the  selfish  to  the  social  spirit,  is 
the  assurance  that  there  stands  waiting  to  receive 
them  this  nobler  life  of  social  service  and  this 
divine  society  of  unselfish  servants  of  God  and 
their  fellow-men.  This  was  the  gospel  with  which 
Jesus  redeemed  the  world,  when  "  he  began  to 
preach,  and  to  say,  Repent  ye  ;  for  the  kingdom 
of  heaven  is  at  hand." 

It  was  not  the  promise  of  immunity  from 
individual  punishment  in  another  world  with 
which  he  won  frightened  adherents  to  his  cause. 
It  was  by  the  immediate  presentation  of  the 
nobler  life  and  the  social  spirit,  by  the  establish- 
ment of  a  society  founded  upon  service,  and  a 
kingdom  rooted  and  grounded  in  love,  that  he 
saved  men  from  selfishness  and  sin  and  im- 
parted   to    the    world    a    new   and    eternal    prin- 


148  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

ciple  of  life.  The  entrance  of  that  Holy  Spirit, 
and  the  development  and  realization  of  that 
divine  life  will  be  the  subject  of  the  following 
chapter. 


CHAPTER    VI 

REGENERATION    AND    GROWTH LIFE 

Even  faith  and  grace  leave  God  and  man,  though 
reconciled,  still  external  to  each  other.  God  is  the 
object  of  faith  ;  man  is  the  object  of  grace.  The 
union  of  God  and  man  in  a  new  life  remains  to  be 
accomplished.  This  is  the  work  of  the  Spirit,  the 
Lord  and  Giver  of  Life.  The  entrance  of  the 
Spirit  is  regeneration. 

Without  regeneration  there  can  be  no  spiritual 
life.  "  Except  a  man  be  born  anew  he  cannot  see 
the  kingdom  of  God."  It  is,  however,  a  serious 
error  to  confine  the  Spirit's  working  to  any  mode 
of  procedure,  to  expect  it  to  be  clearly  defined  in 
time,  or  to  demand  that  the  individual  shall  be 
explicitly  conscious  of  the  process.  The  new 
birth  may  come  as  suddenly  as  a  flash  of  light- 
ning out  of  the  midnight  dark.  More  frequently, 
however,  it  comes  as  gradually  and  imperceptibly 
as  daylight  breaks  upon  the  sleeping  world  at 
dawn.  It  may  be  occasioned  by  the  burning 
words   of   preacher   or   evangelist    at    an    evening 

149 


150  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

meeting.  It  may  be  due  to  the  silent  influence 
of  a  father's  example  and  a  mother's  love,  ex- 
tended over  all  the  years  of  childhood  and  youth. 
It  may  manifest  itself  as  a  sudden  revulsion  from 
one's  whole  past,  and  a  break  with  all  one's  old 
associations  ;  or  it  may  be  simply  the  fuller  recog- 
nition of  the  significance  of  early  training,  and  the 
more  conscious  acceptance  of  established  princi- 
ples of  conduct.  It  may  be  accompanied  by  almost 
any  shade  of  feeling  from  agony  to  rapture ;  and 
its  practical  expression  may  be  anything  between 
greater  kindness  and  considerateness  in  the  home 
to  the  most  arduous  foreign  mission.  "The  wind 
bloweth  where  it  listeth,  and  thou  hearest  the 
voice  thereof,  but  knowest  not  whence  it  cometh, 
and  whither  it  goeth  ;  so  is  every  one  that  is  born 
of  the  Spirit." 

As  we  have  already  seen,  it  is  a  serious  mistake 
to  regard  the  Holy  Spirit  as  a  mysterious  force,  a 
hidden  fire,  a  heavenly  dew,  a  holy  gale,  coming 
down  only  at  special  times  and  places,  and  then 
withdrawing  for  a  season  to  his  secret  habitation. 
We  have  learned  to  recognize  the  presence  of  the 
Holy  Spirit  in  every  heart  in  which  the  seeds  of 
the  Gospel  have  fallen  and  borne  fruit  ;  in  every 
home  where  Christian  principles  are  cherished 
and  observed  ;  in  the  power  of  Christlike  person- 


ANTHROPOLOGICAL  I  5  I 

ality  which  fathers  and  mothers  have  over  chil- 
dren ;  which  teachers  exercise  over  pupils  ;  which 
pastor  exerts  over  people  ;  which  friend  has  over 
friend.  And  if  the  Spirit  be  thus  diffused  and 
omnipresent  ;  then  we  should  expect  his  working 
to  be  no  less  varied  and  multiform. 

Regeneration  is  the  beginning  of  the  process 
by  which  the  raw  material  of  sensuous  impulse 
and  natural  appetite  is  worked  over  into  moral 
virtue  and  spiritual  grace.  It  is  the  entrance  of 
God  into  man,  through  which  the  Spirit  of  God 
comes  to  dwell  in  us  as  a  perpetual  presence ;  the 
abiding  secret  of  all  our  peace,  and  the  permanent 
source  of  all  power. 

The  Spirit  is,  in  his  very  nature,  not  individual- 
istic, but  social.  The  life  of  God  in  man  must  be 
a  universal  life.  The  Spirit  of  God  is  the  Spirit 
of  love.  And  the  manifestation  of  the  Spirit  is 
chiefly  in  and  through  the  institutions  and  practi- 
cal relations  of  society.  The  third  part  of  this 
book  will  be  devoted  to  the  social  expression 
which  the  indwelling  Spirit  makes  in  his  outgoing 
life. 

Here  we  are  concerned  only  with  the  begin- 
ning. It  is  self-evident  that  if  there  is  to  be  a 
life  of  the  Spirit  in  man,  the  beginning  must  be 
made.     "  Marvel   not   that   I    said   unto   thee,   Ye 


152  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

must  be  born  anew."  The  reason  why  the  abso- 
lute and  universal  necessity  of  regeneration  is  not 
more  generally  recognized,  is  that  we  have  looked 
at  the  spiritual  life  as  too  individualistic.  Now 
selfish  and  individualistic  goodness,  if  there  were 
any  such  thing,  might  conceivably  be  attained 
without  the  Spirit's  aid.  But  social  goodness  is 
the  very  life  of  the  Spirit ;  and  to  be  without  the 
Spirit  and  to  be  without  the  life  of  unselfish  social 
service  is  the  same  thing. 

If  we  turn  away  from  abstract  selfish  concep- 
tions of  virtue,  and  consider  the  concrete  relations 
in  which  men  stand  to  each  other  in  society,  we 
shall  see  at  once  that  without  regeneration  there 
can  be  no  true  and  worthy  social  life.  Take  the 
family,  business,  science  and  art,  social  intercourse 
and  the  state.  In  each  of  these  spheres  regenera- 
tion is  an  absolute  necessity  to  the  realization  of 
its  ideal.  The  principle  of  life  which  we  derive 
from  nature,  and  with  which  we  all  start  out,  is  one 
that  must  be  abandoned  and  destroyed,  and  a  new 
principle  or,  rather,  the  Holy  Spirit,  must  take  its 
place,  before  a  man  is  fit  to  be  husband  and  father  ; 
before  he  can  be  an  honour  to  any  craft  or  business 
or  profession  ;  before  he  can  deserve  the  name  of 
scholar  ;  before  he  can  adorn  any  circle  of  society  ; 
before  he  can  be  a  true  and  loyal  citizen  of  any  state. 


ANTHROPOLOGICAL  I  5  3 

First :  the  family.  No  man  can  be  rightly  mar- 
ried who  is  not  therein  born  anew.  This  is  simply 
another  way  of  saying  that  no  man  can  be  rightly 
married  without  love.  For  what  is  love,  if  it  be 
not  the  death  of  the  private  exclusive  self,  which 
cares  for  none  but  self,  and  the  birth  within  one 
of  a  newer,  larger,  richer  self,  which  includes  the 
being  and  welfare  of  another  in  the  aims,  interests, 
and  affections  which  he  calls  his  own.  And  this 
new  life  of  unselfish  love  is  ever  the  life  of  God  ; 
the  indwelling  of  his  Spirit. 

Hence  it  is  no  metaphor,  but  plain,  literal  fact, 
that  the  well-married  husband  and  wife  are  born 
anew ;  and  that  except  a  man  to  this  extent  be 
born  anew  he  cannot  see  the  beauteous  and  blessed 
kingdom  of  family  and  home.  He  that  climbeth  up 
some  other  way  is  a  thief  and  a  robber.  Whether 
that  other  way  be  the  brutal  way  of  gross  passion 
and  cruel  lust  ;  whether  it  be  the  base  way  of 
deliberate  self-seeking  for  wealth  and  family  con- 
nections ;  whether  it  be  the  giddy  way  of  thought- 
less haste  and  sentimental  glamour ;  or  whether 
it  be  the  vulgar  way  of  "  the  low-loving  herd,"  who 
are  fond  "  of  self  in  other  still  preferred";  that 
other  way,  whatever  it  be,  is  sure  to  be  thorny, 
treacherous,  and  troubled,  and  the  end  thereof  is 
misery  and  woe. 


154  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

As  long  as  two  individuals  retain  their  natural, 
separate  selfhood  ;  as  long  as  each  seeks  his  own  ; 
as  long  as  each  regards  the  other  as  means  to  his 
own  ends,  these  individuals  are  unfit  to  be  united. 
And  the  closer  the  bond  that  binds  them,  the 
more  violently  will  they  chafe  against  its  fetters. 
Only  those  who  are  lifted  by  the  Spirit  into  a  new 
life  of  self-forgetful  love  can  find  the  blessed  life  of 
harmoniously  wedded  souls. 

Second :  labour  and  business.  Honest  industry 
and  just  commerce  are  the  foundations  on  which 
rest  all  the  amenities  of  life,  the  sanctities  of 
home,  the  higher  forms  of  social  intercourse,  and 
intellectual  and  political  activity.  Now  it  is  not 
natural  for  man  to  do  his  work  or  go  into  busi- 
ness with  any  such  conception  of  the  social 
significance  of  his  vocation  as  an  artisan,  or  of 
his  high  calling  as  a  business  man.  Men  are  by 
nature  lazy.  It  is  natural  for  the  working  man  to 
shirk  ;  and  to  try  to  get  the  largest  possible  pay 
for  the  least  possible  expenditure  of  effort ;  regard- 
less of  the  worth  or  worthlessness  of  the  product 
of  his  work.  The  natural  attitude  of  men  toward 
business  is  that  of  swine  toward  a  trough.  It  is 
natural  for  a  man  to  get  out  of  his  business  as 
much  as  he  can,  regardless  of  how  he  gets  it,  or 
whom  he  takes  it  from. 


ANTHROPOLOGICAL 


155 


Work  done  in  this  natural  way  is  slavish  and 
degrading.  Business  done  on  this  natural  plane 
dwarfs  the  heart,  deadens  the  sympathies,  and 
shrivels  the  soul.  Except  some  idea  of  industry 
as  a  social  function  enter  into  and  possess  a  man ; 
except  he  resolve  to  do  good  work  whether  his  pay 
be  large  or  small  ;  except  the  sacredness  of  the 
human  interests  that  depend  upon  business  appeal 
to  him  ;  except  the  heroic  ideal  of  business  integ- 
rity lay  its  authoritative  hand  upon  him  ;  except 
he  be  ready  to  maintain  the  costly  right  against 
the  profitable  wrong  at  all  hazards  ;  in  a  word, 
except  the  larger  interests  of  the  industrial  world 
be  reflected  in  his  individual  breast  ;  except  the 
Spirit  of  service  and  justice  animate  his  soul,  he 
cannot  expect  to  find  anything  to  his  credit  on  the 
books  of  God. 

Third :  science  and  art.  We  all  know  too 
well  the  natural  approach  to  these  things ;  the 
delight  in  our  own  smartness  ;  the  pride  in  what 
we  know ;  the  ambition  to  win  fame  by  some 
bold  stroke  or  dashing  performance.  And  yet 
we  all  know  well  that  no  true  work  was  ever 
done  in  such  a  state  ;  that  nothing  good  or  true 
or  beautiful  ever  came  from  man  or  institution 
or  nation  where  such  an  atmosphere  was  preva- 
lent.    We  know  what  mean  jealousies  and  petty 


156  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

strifes  and  bitter  animosities  such  an  attitude 
engenders  among  poets,  painters,  preachers,  musi- 
cians, orators,  scientists,  and  statesmen.  We 
know,  or  ought  to  know,  that  nothing  but  false- 
hood and  folly,  hideousness  and  hate,  can  ever 
be  the  outcome  of  such  an  animus.   ■ 

The  man  who  will  write  lines  that  shall  be 
remembered,  or  speak  words  that  men  shall 
heed,  or  do  work  that  shall  endure,  must  quit 
trying  to  be  smart.  He  must  care  little  for 
the  fate  of  his  private,  pet  hypothesis  who  will 
extend  the  domains  of  real  science.  He  must 
seek  no  short  cut  to  fame  who  will  depict  on 
canvas  or  carve  in  stone  real  facts  of  nature 
in  true  forms  of  thought. 

So  radical,  so  searching,  so  comprehensive, 
must  be  the  change  from  the  seeking  of  selfish 
satisfaction  to  the  service  of  truth  and  beauty, 
in  him  who  will  be  scholar  and  artist.  The 
seed  of  the  natural,  private  self  must  fall  into 
the  ground  and  die,  before  the  better,  higher  self, 
born  of  the  Spirit,  can  put  forth  the  beauteous 
flowers  of  poetry  and  art,  and  mature  the  pre- 
cious fruit  of  science  and  philosophy. 

Fourth :  social  intercourse.  Here  again  the 
natural  attitude  is  one  of  subtle,  but  none  the 
less  real,  self-seeking.     The   natural   man  is  bent 


ANTHROPOLOGICAL  1 57 

on  making  a  good  impression.  He  seeks  not 
so  much  to  give  pleasure  as  to  win  the  con- 
sideration and  flattery  which  is  the  reward  of 
giving  pleasure.  He  fawns  upon  the  rich  and 
frowns  upon  the  poor.  He  makes  distinctions 
for  the  sake  of  distinctions,  and  is  the  upholder 
of  an  artificial  aristocracy  and  caste.  We  all 
have  seen  the  bitter  fruits  of  this  social  self- 
seeking.  Wherever  it  exists  we  find  society 
honeycombed  with  bitter  enmities  and  base  sus- 
picions ;  the  heart  all  eaten  out  of  it  by  burning 
jealousies  and  mutual  distrust  ;  the  soul  con- 
sumed with  suppressed  hate  and  hidden  grief  ; 
the  surface  all  crusted  over  with  artificial  form 
and  ostentatious  rivalry. 

Only  when  the  Spirit  of  love  enters,  putting 
self  last  and  others  first,  and  generously  devot- 
ing talents,  beauty,  wealth,  position,  and  accom- 
plishments to  the  increase  of  happiness  and  the 
upbuilding  of  character  in  as  wide  a  circle  as 
kinship  of  spirit  and  community  of  interest  can 
reasonably  include,  —  only  then  are  these  gifts 
reclaimed  from  corruption ;  only  then  is  society 
justified  and  its  members  blessed. 

Fifth  :  politics.  There  are  two  seemingly  op- 
posite, but  radically  identical  attitudes  toward 
politics,  which  it  is  equally  natural  to  take.     The 


158  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

indifferent  man  trusts  that  things  will  go  about 
right  any  way  ;  he  sees  that  he  will  make  enemies 
and  lose  customers  if  he  meddles  with  politics  ; 
and  so  he  lets  politics  alone. 

The  ambitious  man  sees  that  with  a  little 
ready  wit  and  a  fluent  tongue ;  by  spending  a 
little  money  and  doing  a  little  dirty  work,  he 
can  establish  claims  upon  his  party,  which  sooner 
or  later  will  be  rewarded  with  office  and  emolu- 
ments, patronage  and  power.  Neither  of  these 
natural  attitudes  is  patriotism.  Patriotism  is  a 
fruit  of  the  Spirit,  which  nature  cannot  evoke ; 
still  less  maintain.  And  that  is  why  the  mainte- 
nance on  any  considerable  scale  of  a  pure  and 
devoted  patriotism  in  times  of  peace  and  plenty 
has  ever  been  the  unsolved  problem  of  repub- 
lics ;  the  unfulfilled  duty  of  multitudes  of  other- 
wise estimable  and  honourable  men.  A  Spirit 
higher  than  his  own  individual  nature  must  come 
into  a  man  ;  making  him  see  in  city  and  state 
and  nation  a  sacred  worth,  a  social  claim,  a  divine 
authority,  so  high  above  the  pettiness  of  his  pri- 
vate interests  and  personal  ambitions  that  rivalry 
between  them  is  impossible. 

In  each  and  every  sphere  of  social  life  a  man 
must  become  in  spirit,  attitude,  and  aim,  an  en- 
tirely new  creature,  before  he  can  realize  the  ideal 


ANTH  ROPOLOGICAL  1 5  9 

of  that  sphere.  What  is  true  of  the  parts  is  true 
of  the  whole.  Into  social  life  in  its  broadest  and 
highest  significance  ;  into  the  kingdom  which  in- 
cludes all  these  separate  spheres,  no  man  can  enter, 
except  first  the  Holy  Spirit,  the  Spirit  of  self- 
forgetful  and  unselfish  service,  the  Spirit  that 
recognizes  objective  and  universal  interests  as  its 
own,  enter  into  him.  "Verily,  verily,  I  say  unto 
thee,  Except  a  man  be  born  anew,  he  cannot  see 
the  kingdom  of  God." 

The  man  who  has  been  born  of  the  Spirit  sees 
life,  in  all  its  departments  —  home,  business, 
study,  society,  and  politics  —  as  one  rounded  and 
organic  whole  of  which  he  is  a  conscious  and 
co-operating  member.  One  Father's  thought  em- 
braces this  total  life  of  man.  One  Filial  Will  is 
seeking  realization  in  all  its  several  departments. 
One  Spirit  animates  it  all.  Before  this  all-em- 
bracing thought  of  the  Father  ;  this  all-conquering 
will  of  the  Son  ;  this  all-pervading  life  of  the 
Spirit,  the  regenerated  man  lays  down  all  mean 
and  petty  aims  that  are  peculiar  to  himself  as  a 
private,  particular  individual  ;  and  receives  into 
himself  as  the  substance  of  a  new  life  the  larger 
thought,  the  higher  will,  the  purer  purpose  which 
he  has  found  in  God.  Thus  by  the  mighty  trans- 
forming   power   of   the    Spirit,  received  and   wel- 


l6o  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

corned  into  the  heart  of  man,  he  passes  from 
death  to  life,  from  strife  to  peace,  from  bondage 
to  liberty,  from  the  minding  of  the  flesh  to  the 
minding  of  the  Spirit,  from  identification  with 
the  merely  natural  will  of  his  petty  private  self 
into  identification  with  the  glorious  will  of  him 
who  is  the  Institutor  of  the  family,  the  Law- 
giver of  business,  the  Source  of  truth  and  beauty, 
the  Ideal  of  good-will  and  lovingkindness,  the 
Founder  and  Judge  of  nations,  the  Creator  of 
the  world,  and  the   Father  of  our  spirits. 

As  the  new  life  begins  in  a  new  birth,  not  in 
an  individual  act,  so  its  continuance  is  a  gradual 
growth,  not  an  artificial  manufacture.  Here  we 
see  the  great  difference  between  morality  and 
religion.  Morality  undertakes  to  manufacture 
character :  religion  plants  the  seed,  cultivates  it 
patiently  and  faithfully,  and  waits  for  it  to  grow. 
The  spiritual  nature  in  man  is  a  plant  of  slow 
growth.  You  can  get  quicker  returns  by  the  ar- 
tificial method  of  self-conscious  moralizing.  But 
to  put  out  and  keep  out  all  lust,  covetousness, 
malice,  indolence,  jealousy,  falsehood,  pride,  and 
selfishness  ;  and  to  fill  the  life  and  keep  it  full  of 
purity,  generosity,  energy,  gentleness,  meekness, 
kindness,  and  love ;  that,  or  any  considerable 
approximation  to  it,  by  the  moral  method  of  culti- 


A  NT  1 1  ROP( )  I  .OGICAL  1 6 1 

vating  one  by  one  the  separate  moral  virtues,  is  a 
sheer  impossibility.  The  task  is  too  vast  ;  the  foe 
too  subtle  ;  the  will  of  man  too  weak  and  too  incon- 
stant. The  natural  self  is  a  veritable  Hydra.  For 
every  vice  you  cut  off  two  spring  up  afresh.  The 
bad  principle  within  us,  as  ascetics  and  subjective 
moralists  ever  have  found  and  testified,  is  strength- 
ened by  our  attacks  and  consolidated  by  our  blows. 
Morality  points  us  in  the  right  direction.  We  all 
owe  our  first  steps  in  righteousness  to  this  strict 
pedagogue.  But  it  can  take  us  such  a  little  way ; 
it  stops  so  far  short  of  the  goal  ;  and  then  the 
virtue  it  does  attain  is  so  self-conscious,  so  cold 
and  formal,  so  akin  to  pride  and  so  liable  to  the 
fall  that  always  follows  pride  ;  that  those  who  have 
tried  this  method  of  a  formal,  legal,  artificial  self- 
righteousness  most  faithfully  have  been  the  first 
to  acknowledge  its  shortcoming. 

Just  because  the  transformation  wrought  by  the 
Spirit  is  more  deep  and  fundamental  than  that 
wrought  by  morality,  it  is  more  obscure  in  its 
working,  and  more  slow  in  producing  visible  re- 
sults. The  regenerated  man  will  not  be  made  per- 
fect all  at  once.  And  yet  from  the  beginning  his 
salvation  is  assured.  Though  temptation  will  still 
press  hard  upon  him,  though  sins  will  still  beset 
his    path,   though    his    falls    will    continue    to    be 


1 62  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

many,  yet  he  will  have  strength  to  resist,  grace 
to  repent,  power  to  rise  above  it  all.  In  the  face 
of  his  worst  failings  and  shortcomings  he  can 
say,  "  It  is  no  more  I  that  do  it,  but  sin  which 
dwelleth  in  me."  In  other  words,  it  is  not  the 
new  true  self  which  he  is  resolved  to  be,  not  the 
self  which  he  has  received  from  God  and  which 
henceforth  is  to  be  the  inmost  centre  of  his  be- 
ing ;  it  is  the  old,  renounced,  repudiated  self  that 
sins.  It  is  the  not  yet  arrested  momentum  of 
habits  that  are  in  principle  abandoned  ;  it  is  the 
poisonous  fruit  still  clinging  to  the  branches  of 
a  tree  which  has  been  plucked  up  by  the  roots, 
which  still  mars  the  outward  life  with  sin  and 
shame.  But  from  all  present  and  permanent 
identification  of  heart  and  life  with  the  repu- 
diated evil,  the  birth  and  growth  within  him  of  a 
new  life  gives  him  complete  deliverance,  assured 
salvation. 

The  growth  of  the  spiritual  life  is  largely  hidden 
and  unconscious,  like  the  growth  of  a  seed.  "So  is 
the  kingdom  of  God,  as  if  a  man  should  cast  seed 
upon  the  earth  ;  and  should  sleep  and  rise  night 
and  day,  and  the  seed  should  spring  up  and  grow, 
he  knoweth  not  how." 

Psychical  research  has  been  revealing  curious 
facts  of  late.     Things    once    thought    miraculous, 


ANTHROPOLOGICAL  1 63 

like  the  stigmata  of  the  cross  on  the  bodies  of 
mediaeval  saints,  can  be  duplicated  to-day  wher- 
ever the  hypnotizer  can  find  a  patient  sufficiently 
susceptible ;  careful  experiments  go  far  toward 
establishing  the  ability  of  peculiarly  sensitive  per- 
sons to  read,  without  the  aid  of  ordinary  sensuous 
symbols,  the  contents  of  another  mind.  The  fact 
that  there  may  be  in  the  same  body,  and  con- 
nected with  the  same  brain,  two  distinct  selves, 
each  ignoring  the  presence  of  the  other,  each  in 
a  way  complementary  to  the  other ;  which  take 
turns  in  occupying  the  field  of  consciousness,  one 
self  sleeping  while  the  other  wakes,  one  express- 
ing itself  through  the  voice  in  speech  while  the 
other  expresses  itself  through  the  hand  in  writ- 
ing, —  these,  and  a  host  of  similar  facts,  once 
denied  and  ridiculed,  are  coming  to  be  accepted 
data  of  psychology. 

Now,  when  new  facts  do  not  fit  into  old  the- 
ories, there  is  only  one  thing  to  do.  We  must 
make  new  theories  large  enough  to  give  these 
new  facts  room.  That  is  just  what  psychology 
is  doing  to-day.  To  explain  these  facts  we  are 
compelled  to  assume  that  the  self  is  more  than 
we  are  conscious  of.  As  Mr.  F.  W.  H.  Myers 
has  expressed  it,  there  is  a  subliminal  conscious- 
ness, so  deeply  buried  that  ordinarily  we  are  not 


1 64  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

aware  of  its  existence.  Only  when  the  flow  of 
our  ordinary  consciousness  is  arrested  or  diverted 
does  this  deeper  consciousness  manifest  itself.  It 
is  in  this  buried  consciousness  that  all  these 
powers  inhere  for  which  the  upper  or  ordinary 
consciousness  has  no  place  and  of  which  it  can 
give  no  explanation.  According  to  this  view,  the 
spirit  or  soul  of  man  floats  in  nature  like  a  solid 
in  a  liquid.  A  part  only  of  the  solid  object  is 
visible.  The  other  part,  and  usually  the  larger 
part,  is  hidden  beneath  the  surface.  The  self  of 
which  we  are  conscious  is  only  one  section,  per- 
haps a  small  section,  of  the  total  self. 

"  Below  the  surface-stream,  shallow  and  light, 
Of  what  we  say  we  feel  —  below  the  stream, 
As  light,  of  what  we  think  we  feel  —  there  flows, 
With  noiseless  current  strong,  obscure,  and  deep, 
The  central  stream  of  what  we  feel  indeed.1' 

If,  now,  psychologist  and  poet  are  right ;  if  a 
large  part  of  each  man's  self  is  below  the  thresh- 
old of  his  own  consciousness  and  beyond  the 
reach  of  his  own  observation,  it  behooves  us  in 
all  our  practical  concerns  to  take  account  of  this 
subconscious   self. 

It  is  not  the  infinitesimal  fraction  of  spiritual 
truth  that  we  have  apprehended  already  ;  not  the 
poor,  petty  experiences  that  we  have  gone  through  ; 


ANTHROPOLOGICAL  1 65 

not  the  filthy  rags  of  a  righteousness  with  which 
we  have  succeeded  in  clothing  ourselves,  that  con- 
stitute the  worth  of  our  religious  life.  It  is  the 
truth,  not  that  we  have  gotten  hold  of,  but  that 
has  gotten  hold  of  us  with  such  power  that,  though 
we  know  but  little  of  it,  we  are  sure  there  is 
infinitely  more,  and  we  surrender  our  minds  to  its 
gradual  reception  ;  it  is  the  experience,  not  that 
we  have  had,  but  that  we  are  sure  we  might  have 
and  ought  to  have,  and  which  we  invite  into  our 
life  by  habits  of  consecration  and  devotion  ;  it  is 
the  conduct,  not  which  we  have  wrought  out  as  a 
finished  achievement,  but  which  we  plant  far  in 
advance  of  present  attainment  as  our  ideal  and 
goal,  and  vow  never  to  cease  our  aspiration  and 
endeavour  until  the  ideal  shall  be  real  and  the  goal 
is  won,  —  these  are  the  deep  and  real  grounds  of 
Christian  confidence.  In  other  words,  we  are 
saved,  not  by  retrospection,  nor  yet  by  introspec- 
tion, but,  as  Paul  says,  by  hope  ;  by  faith  and  not 
by  works  ;  by  aspiration  toward  what  we  shall  be, 
not  by  satisfaction  with  what  we  are ;  by  the  con- 
fession of  Christ,  not  by  the  profession  of  our  own 
religion  ;  by  the  reception  of  the  Spirit,  not  by  any 
merit  in  our  natural  selves. 

Two  practical  conclusions  follow  obviously  from 
this  recognition  of  the  unconscious  growth  of  the 


1 66  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

religious  nature.  First :  we  must  make  sure  that 
we  plant  the  seed  of  truth  deep  in  the  soil  of  mind 
and  heart.  When  we  plant  seed  in  the  ground,  we 
cannot  see  it  grow  at  first.  We  must  have  faith 
in  what  we  cannot  see.  We  must  leave  the  seed 
to  grow  of  itself.  But  we  must  plant  it,  to  begin 
with.  We  must  know  that  it  is  there.  The  ground 
does  not  bring  forth  fruit  of  itself.  The  sower 
must  cast  seed  into  the  ground.  And  this  is  a 
conscious  process.  This  is  left  for  each  man  con- 
sciously to  do  for  himself.  The  winds  of  heaven 
will  sow  all  sorts  of  weeds  and  tares.  The  good 
seed  must  be  selected  and  planted  by  the  hand  of 
man. 

Here,  then,  is  the  great  question  for  each  thought- 
ful mind  to  ponder  :  Have  I  planted  the  seed  of  a 
worthy  character  in  my  own  heart,  and  am  I 
watering  it,  and  keeping  the  weeds  down,  day  by 
day  ?  Notice,  please,  that  the  question  is  not 
whether  the  plant  has  grown  to  any  particular 
height,  or  whether  the  fruit  is  ripe  upon  its 
branches.  That  is  a  minor  matter.  The  question 
is  simply  whether  I  have  consciously  committed 
my  heart  to  God ;  whether  I  have  taken  Christ  as 
my  Lord  and  Master,  my  standard  and  ideal; 
and  whether  day  by  day  I  am  opening  my  heart 
in  meditation,  in  aspiration,  in  communion,  to  him 


ANTHROPO  LOGICAL  1 67 

and  to  the  gracious  influence  of  his  Spirit  ?  It  is 
not  a  great  thing,  not  a  hard  thing,  to  do.  There 
is  no  possible  excuse  for  waiting.  The  simplest 
creed,  the  slightest  stirring  of  feeling,  the  feeblest 
genuine  determination  to  do  right,  is  all  one  needs 
to  start  with.  This  seed  of  a  sincere  acceptance 
of  Christ  as  Lord,  once  planted,  and  faithfully 
watered  and  cultivated  by  systematic  habits  of 
devotion,  will  spring  up  and  grow,  and  blossom 
into  noble  character  and  splendid  usefulness. 

Having  once  received  the  Spirit,  having  planted 
the  seed,  we  may  trust  this  good  seed  to  do  its 
work  in  its  own  time  and  in  its  own  way.  Above 
all  things,  let  us  not  pull  it  up  by  the  roots  every 
now  and  then  to  see  how  it  is  growing.  Let  us 
remember  that  we  have  just  two  things  to  do:  to 
plant  the  seed,  and  to  keep  it  provided  with  proper 
nourishment  and  care.  And  we  may  rest  assured 
that  if  we  do  our  part  the  seed  will  do  the  rest. 
We  need  not  be  impatient  for  the  fruit.  It  will 
not  come  all  at  once.  For  a  long  time  after  plant- 
ing we  shall  see  no  visible  signs  of  even  the  plant, 
to  say  nothing  of  bud  and  flower  and  fruit.  That 
is  the  time  when  young  Christians  who  have  not 
pondered  our  parable  fall  into  dejection  and  de- 
spair. They  have  planted  the  seed,  and  it  has 
not  come  up.     They  have  nothing  to  show  for  it. 


1 68  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

They  have  given  their  hearts  to  Christ,  and  he  has 
given  scarcely  a  token  of  recognition.  They  have 
no  sure  creed  that  they  can  proclaim  ;  no  experi- 
ence that  they  can  relate  in  meeting ;  no  manifest 
change  in  deportment  to  which  they  can  point 
with  pride  as  evidence  of  their  conversion.  Well, 
if  the  parable  is  true  ;  if  there  is  a  deeper  seif  than 
that  which  appears  upon  the  surface,  this,  far  from 
being  an  occasion  for  regret,  is  evidence  that  the 
seed  of  a  true  Christian  character  is  growing  in 
just  the  humble,  quiet,  natural  way  in  which  God 
would  have  it  grow;  in  just  the  way  in  which 
Jesus  tells  us  that  it  must  grow,  if  it  is  to  be  a 
vigorous,  healthy  plant,  and  bear  sound,  sweet 
fruit  at  last.  Silently  and  slowly,  but  steadily  and 
surely,  the  truth  that  God's  service  is  our  first 
concern,  the  feeling  that  Christ's  character  is  our 
supreme  ideal,  the  determination  that  our  life  shall 
be  lived  in  the  Spirit  of  love  which  he  imparted  to 
the  world  —  these  ideals,  principles,  and  aspirations 
are  gradually  transforming  our  ways  of  thinking, 
our  currents  of  emotion,  our  springs  of  action. 
Let  the  good  work  go  on.  We  must  keep  near  to 
God  by  study  of  his  Word,  by  submission  to  his 
will,  by  fellowship  with  those  who  are  seeking  to 
know  and  serve  him.  But  we  must  think  as  little 
of  ourselves  as  possible,  and  not  stop  to  take  ac- 


ANTH  ROPOLOGICAL  1 69 

count  of  stock  of  our  spiritual  attainments.  The 
Bible  does  not  tell  us  that  we  shall  walk  all  the 
way  by  sight.  It  does  not  promise  quick  and 
visible  returns  for  every  investment.  Have  we 
really  learned,  with  all  our  orthodoxy  of  creed  and 
confession,  the  one  great  lesson,  so  simple  yet  so 
essential,  that  we  are  saved  by  the  slow  transfor- 
mation wrought  within  us  by  a  cherished  faith,  not 
by  the  sudden  exhibition  of  accomplished  works  ; 
and  that  the  source  of  our  salvation  is  the  Christ 
whom  we  gradually  appropriate  by  love  and  trust, 
and  the  Holy  Spirit  whom  we  receive ;  not  our 
own  power  to  repeat  a  creed,  or  lead  a  meeting,  or 
accomplish  a  reform  ? 

Of  course,  in  due  time  faith  will  produce  appro- 
priate works  ;  the  grown  stalk  will  bear  fruit  after 
its  kind.  Yet  here,  too,  we  must  have  much 
patience  with  ourselves.  We  must  not  expect  the 
ripened  and  perfected  fruit  all  at  once.  Our  first 
works  will  be  failures  and  defeats ;  our  second, 
blunders  and  mistakes ;  after  that  we  may  expect 
such  partial  and  moderate  success  as  invariably 
crowns  fidelity  and  constancy  and  courage.  Does 
this  seem  a  gloomy  and  depressing  prophecy  ?  It 
is  merely  a  modern  version  of  the  words:  "The 
earth  beareth  fruit  of  herself:  first  the  blade,  then 
the  ear,  after  that  the  full  corn  in  the  ear." 


\yo  social  theolcx;y 

If  the  seed  of  a  sincere  and  sustained  desire 
and  purpose  to  follow  Christ  is  really  planted  in 
our  hearts  and  watered  by  daily  prayer  and  medi- 
tation, we  may  trust  God  implicitly ;  trust  the 
seed's  inherent  power ;  trust  the  fertility  of  our 
own  deeper  nature ;  and  wait  patiently  for  God  to 
do  his  work.  We  shall  fail ;  we  shall  err ;  we 
shall  sin  ;  and  for  a  long  time  our  new  purpose 
will  manifest  itself  chiefly  in  overtaking  our  faults 
after  they  are  committed  ;  and  that,  we  saw,  is 
penitence.  By  and  by  our  new  God-given  pur- 
pose will  grow  stronger  and  gain  upon  the  in- 
grained habits  of  selfishness  and  sin ;  and  then 
there  will  come  many  a  bitter  struggle  into  life. 
In  the  end  we  shall  conquer ;  and  then  our  di- 
vinely implanted  life  will  get  the  start  of  the  old 
and  dying  impulses  of  crude,  selfish,  and  sensual 
desire ;  then  the  matured  product  of  our  long- 
buried  faith  will  be  manifest  in  a  character  con- 
firmed in  righteousness,  and  a  conduct  visibly 
consistent  with  the  spiritual  standard  so  long  in- 
visibly cherished. 

Then  the  wonder  will  be  all  the  other  way.  At 
first  we  wonder  that  a  man  who  has  confessed 
Christ,  and  is  honestly  trying  to  follow  him,  can 
give  so  little  evidence  of  it  in  conduct.  This 
makes   us   critical   and   censorious   of   others,   dis- 


ANTHROPOLOGICAL 


71 


heartened  and  despairing  about  ourselves.  When, 
however,  we  look  on  the  mature  and  developed 
Christian,  when  we  see  such  serenity  in  bereave- 
ment, such  patience  in  trial,  such  fortitude  in 
sorrow,  such  supremacy  over  appetite,  such  self- 
control  in  passion,  such  fidelity  to  the  costly  right 
against  the  profitable  wrong,  such  loyalty  to 
searching  and  unwelcome  truth  against  easy  and 
accepted  error,  such  sympathy  with  the  weak  and 
suffering,  and  such  fearless  opposition  to  oppres- 
sive wealth  and  unrighteous  power,  then  the  won- 
der is  all  the  other  way,  and  we  ask,  How  can 
such  strong  and  sweet  and  noble  character  consist 
with  frail  human  nature  ?  The  answer,  however, 
is  not  far  to  seek.  Long  ago,  in  the  days  of  seed- 
time, there  was  sown  in  this  soul  the  tiny  seed  of 
an  earnest  aspiration  to  become  more  and  more 
like  Christ.  For  weeks  and  months  the  seed  lay 
buried,  giving  little  or  no  outward  proof  of  its 
presence,  and  even  its  possessor  doubted  at  times 
whether  it  were  actually  alive.  Then  came  the 
early  years  of  failure  and  defeat ;  then  the  years 
of  sore  temptation  and  bitter  conflict,  when  the 
old  self  and  the  new  fought  desperately  for  the 
supremacy.  And  now  the  new  life  has  so  com- 
pletely conquered  that  the  Spirit  of  Christ  has 
become  a  second    nature,    putting   forth    the   fair 


172  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

leaves  of  appropriate  conduct,  and  bearing  the 
precious  fruit  of  Christian  character.  Then  we 
understand  the  meaning  of  another  closely  re- 
lated parable  which  tells  us  that  the  kingdom  of 
heaven  is  very  small  in  its  beginning,  but  very 
great  in  its  final  outcome.  It  is  like  "a  grain  of 
mustard-seed,  which,  when  it  is  sown  upon  the 
earth,  though  it  be  less  than  all  seeds  that  are 
upon  the  earth,  yet  when  it  is  sown  groweth  up 
and  becometh  greater  than  all  the  herbs,  and  put- 
teth  out  great  branches,  so  that  the  birds  of 
the  heaven  can  lodge  under  the  shadow  thereof." 


Part  III 
SOCIOLOGICAL 


CHAPTER   VII 

POSSESSION    AND    CONFESSION  —  THE    CHURCH 

Having  gained  the  life  of  the  Spirit,  it  might 
seem  as  if  nothing  remained  for  man  to  do  but 
to  keep  it.  Yet  if  we  have  apprehended  this  life 
aright  we  have  seen  that  it  is  something  which  by 
its  very  nature  refuses  to  be  kept.  God  is  the 
universal  thought  and  will  whom  no  finite  mind 
can  possibly  contain.  He  is  the  whole  of  which 
our  thoughts  and  purposes  are  but  partial  and 
fragmentary  reproductions.  And  only  by  con- 
stant enlargement  and  perpetual  endeavour  can 
we  keep  in  communion  and  fellowship  with  him. 
Christ  is  the  moral  and  spiritual  ideal ;  never 
perfectly  realized  in  us,  and  only  by  ceaseless 
striving  can  we  retain  our  hold  on  him.  The 
Spirit  is  the  life  of  God  and  Christ  in  humanity  ; 
and  only  by  the  continual  outgoing  of  sympathy 
and  service  can  we  share  his  blessed  life  of  love. 

Faith,  hope,  love,  all  the  graces  and  qualities  of 
the  spiritual  life,  are  social.  They  lead  the  indi- 
vidual   out    of  himself  into  relations  with  others. 

i75 


176  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

Theology  shows  us  God  as  implied  in  the  rational 
and  moral  nature  of  man.  Anthropology  shows 
us  man  turning  from  sin  in  penitence,  laying  hold 
on  Christ  by  faith,  and  received  into  the  divine 
life  by  regeneration.  Sociology  shows  us  the  union 
of  God  and  man  expressed  in  divine  institutions, 
wrought  out  by  human  service,  and  embodied  in  a 
universal  life  of  love  in  which  the  will  of  God  is 
accomplished  through  the  instrumentality  of  man. 

The  life  of  the  Spirit,  as  we  saw  in  the  last 
chapter,  resembles  a  seed.  To  keep  a  seed  is  to 
kill  it.  It  must  be  planted.  It  must  be  placed  in 
vital  relations  with  the  great  forces  of  nature. 
"  Verily,  verily,  I  say  unto  you,  Except  a  grain  of 
wheat  fall  into  the  earth  and  die,  it  abideth  by 
itself  alone  ;  but  if  it  die,  it  beareth  much  fruit. 
He  that  loveth  his  life  [or  his  soul]  loseth  it." 
"  If  any  man  would  come  after  me,  let  him  deny 
himself,  and  take  up  his  cross  daily,  and  follow 
me."  From  the  unprofitable  servant  who  hid  the 
talent  it  is  taken  away.  The  spiritual  life  is  not  a 
possession  which  the  individual  can  enjoy  off  in 
a  corner  by  himself.  Unless  he  gives  it  unselfishly 
to  others,  and  shares  it  generously  with  the  world, 
it  withers  and  shrivels  to  nothingness  in  his  hands. 

The  more  vital  and  practical  expressions  of  the 
spiritual  life  will   be  considered  in  later  chapters. 


SOCIOLOGICAL  177 

The  formal  manifestation  of  the  spiritual  principle 
concerns  us  here. 

The  first  duty  of  the  man  who  has  the  spiritual 
life  is  to  acknowledge  it.  If  a  man  is  ashamed  of 
it,  it  is  a  sure  sign  that  he  has  not  got  it ;  or  at 
least  that  he  has  it  in  a  very  unworthy  and  dis- 
torted form.  No  man  can  be  ashamed  of  God, 
who  has  a  worthy  conception  of  his  nature.  No 
man  can  be  ashamed  of  Christ,  who  has  caught 
the  faintest  glimpse  of  the  real  nobleness  of  his 
character.  No  man  can  be  ashamed  of  the  spirit- 
ual life,  who  has  entered  ever  so  little  into  the 
secret  of  its  divine  unselfishness. 

A  friend  whom  we  are  unwilling  to  acknowledge 
publicly  as  our  friend,  is  no  friend  at  all. 
"  And  I  say  unto  you,  Every  one  who  shall 
confess  me  before  men,  him  shall  the  Son  of 
man  also  confess  before  the  angels  of  God  :  but 
he  that  denieth  me  in  the  presence  of  men 
shall  be  denied  in  the  presence  of  the  angels 
of  God."  This  is  not  a  hard  saying,  pointing  to 
a  time  in  the  far  future  when  the  offended  Christ 
will  pay  back  in  their  own  coin  those  who  have 
had  the  audacity  to  slight  him.  The  man  who 
refuses  to  confess  Christ  is  lacking  in  the  first 
principles  of  Christlikeness.  He  is  either  blind 
and  cannot  see  Christ's  character  and  worth  ;   in 

N 


178  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

which  case  Christ  could  pity,  but  scarcely  could 
confess  him  as  already  his  follower  and  friend. 
Or  else  he  sees  and  is  ashamed  to  own  it  ;  and 
then  he  is  a  coward,  whom  no  amount  of  confes- 
sion by  Christ,  even  if  such  confession  were  possi- 
ble, could  ever  make  respectable  and  presentable. 

It  is  a  maxim  of  psychology  that  "all  mental 
states  are  followed  by  activity  of  some  sort." 
Whoever  has  a  worthy  conception  of  God  and  the 
divine  life  must  do  something  about  it.  He  may 
confess  it  like  a  man  ;  he  may  conceal  it  like  a 
coward.  Between  these  two  there  is  no  middle 
ground.  "  He  that  is  not  with  me  is  against  me ; 
and  he  that  gathereth  not  with  me  scattereth." 
Christ  repudiates  all  weak-kneed,  half-hearted  fol- 
lowers with  the  curt  remark  that  they  are  "  not  fit 
for  the  kingdom  of  God."  Such  unseasoned  salt 
he  tells  them  is  "  fit  neither  for  the  land  nor  the 
dunghill :  men  cast  it  out." 

The  confession  of  Christ  is  not  confined  to  the 
declaration  of  individuals.  It  finds  its  permanent 
and  corporate  expression  in  the  church.  The 
church  is  the  organized  and  visible  witness  to 
Christ.  It  is  the  company  of  those  who  own  him 
as  Lord  and  Master,  unite  in  the  worship  of  the 
Father  whom  he  revealed,  and  devote  themselves 
to  the  service  of  the  world  he  came  to  save. 


SOCIOLOGICAL  1 79 

The  church  is  not  in  itself  the  kingdom  of  God. 
It  is  the  training-school  for  it.  The  kingdom  of 
God  is  realized  in  actual  service  of  the  world,  in 
costly  sacrifice  for  men  ;  in  the  heat  of  the  con- 
flict ;  and  in  the  joy  of  achieved  victory.  The 
church  is  the  institution  where  the  life  of  ser- 
vice is  systematically  cultivated  ;  where  the  princi- 
ples of  the  kingdom  are  systematically  taught  • 
where  the  motives  of  loyalty  are  systematically 
inculcated. 

Dr.  Gladden  has  happily  compared  the  relation 
of  the  church  to  the  kingdom  of  God  with  the  re- 
lation of  the  brain  to  the  body.  He  says,  "  The 
kingdom  of  heaven  is  the  entire  social  organism 
in  its  ideal  perfection ;  the  church  is  one  of  the 
organs, — the  most  central  and  important  of  them 
all,  —  having  much  the  same  relation  to  Christian 
society  that  the  brain  has  to  the  body.  The  body 
is  not  all  brain ;  but  the  brain  is  the  seat  of 
thought  and  feeling  and  motion.  A  body  without 
a  brain  would  not  be  a  very  effective  instrument 
of  the  mind ;  society,  without  those  specialized 
religious  functions  which  are  gathered  up  in  the 
church,  would  not  very  readily  receive  and  incar- 
nate and  distribute  the  gifts  of  the  Spirit  of  God. 

"  And  yet  the  brain  is  of  use  only  as  it  furnishes 
to  all  the  other  organs  and  parts  of  the  body  feel- 


ISO  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

ing  and  motion.  The  life  and  health  of  the  brain 
are  found  only  in  ministering  to  the  whole  body. 
Exactly  in  the  same  way  is  the  church  related  to 
all  the  other  parts  of  human  society.  Its  life  is  in 
their  life  :  it  cannot  live  apart  from  them  ;  it  lives 
by  what  it  gives  to  them  ;  it  has  neither  meaning 
nor  justification  except  in  what  it  does  to  vitalize 
and  spiritualize  business  and  politics  and  amuse- 
ment and  art  and  literature  and  education,  and 
every  other  interest  of  society.  The  moment  it 
draws  apart,  and  tries  to  set  up  a  snug  little  eccle- 
siasticism,  with  interests  of  its  own,  and  a  cultus 
of  its  own,  and  enjoyments  of  its  own  —  the  mo- 
ment it  begins  to  teach  men  to  be  religious  just 
for  the  sake  of  being  religious  —  that  moment  it 
becomes  dead  and  accursed  ;  it  is  worse  than  use- 
less ;  it  is  a  bane  and  a  blight  to  all  the  society  in 
which  it  stands." 

The  church  is  the  inspirer  and  director  of  social 
service.  The  primitive  church  undertook  not  only 
to  inspire  and  guide,  but  actually  to  perform  a 
large  amount  of  social  work.  The  institutional 
church  attempts  to  do  that  now.  In  both  cases 
the  assumption  of  such  work  has  been  justified 
by  the  circumstances.  Where  the  social  machin- 
ery for  the  care  of  the  sick,  the  training  of  the 
young,   the   feeding   of   the   hungry,   the   clothing 


SOCIOLOGICAL  l8l 

of  the  naked,  and  the  employment  of  the  unem- 
ployed is  lacking,  as  it  was  in  the  days  when  the 
church  was  founded,  and  as  to  a  great  extent  it 
is  in  sections  of  our  large  cities  to-day,  then  it  is 
the  duty  of  the  church  in  its  official  and  organized 
capacity  to  practise  as  well  as  to  teach ;  to  per- 
form as  well  as  to  direct  these  social  services. 

Yet,  these  are  undeveloped  and  abnormal  con- 
ditions. The  more  developed  a  community  be- 
comes, the  more  specialized  become  its  organs. 
Then  charity,  the  housing  of  the  poor,  education, 
penology,  are  turned  over  to  organizations  and 
institutions  especially  designed  to  perform  these 
particular  services  ;  and  the  church  is  left  free  to 
do  its  special  work  of  cultivating  the  social  spirit 
and  keeping  alive  the  altruistic  and  reverent  dis- 
position. The  church  continues  to  be  responsible 
for  the  efficient  performance  of  these  social  activ- 
ities ;  but  it  exercises  its  power  chiefly  in  the 
moulding  of  the  institutions  and  the  inspiring  of 
individuals  who  do  the  actual  work. 

There  is,  indeed,  great  danger  that  the  church, 
when  so  largely  relieved  of  actual  service,  will  for- 
get to  cultivate  the  spirit  of  service,  and  become  a 
dead  and  fruitless  cumberer  of  the  ground.  This, 
however,  is  the  danger  that  all  great  opportunity 
involves.      The    college,    with    its   four    years    of 


1 82  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

leisure,  has  a  magnificent  opportunity  to  train 
young  men  for  service.  And  yet,  we  all  know 
that  this  very  opportunity  is  perverted  into  an 
excuse  for  idleness  and  a  preparation  for  worth- 
lessness  by  a  certain  proportion  of  every  college 
class.  The  church,  like  the  college,  must  accept 
the  greater  opportunity,  with  its  accompanying 
risks.  A  certain  proportion  of  churches  are 
doubtless  mere  cumberers  of  the  ground.  Yet 
that  by  no  means  disproves  the  importance  of 
the  really  useful  churches  as  trainers  of  men  for 
service  and  self-sacrifice,  for  the  worship  of  God 
and  the  upbuilding  of  man.  No  more  useless  and 
worthless  and  pitiful  and  contemptible  creature 
walks  the  earth  than  the  mere  ecclesiastic,  who 
strives  to  build  up  his  church  as  an  end  in  itself. 
They  are  the  successors  of  the  scribes  and  Phari- 
sees and  chief  priests  who  were  so  odious  to  Christ, 
and  who  brought  about  his  crucifixion.  Jesus 
ranked  them  below  publicans  and  harlots ;  and 
there  are  ecclesiastics  in  nearly  every  communion 
to-day,  who  are  less  genuine  and  frank  and  honest 
and  disinterested  than  the  gambler  and  the  rum- 
seller  whom  they  denounce.  If  one  of  the  twelve 
was  a  traitor,  we  must  not  expect  perfection  in 
any  line  of  apostolical  succession.  The  church, 
like  all  human   institutions,   holds  its  treasure  in 


SOCIOLOGICAL  1 83 

earthen  vessels.  But  there  is  no  more  reason  to 
abandon  or  despise  the  church  on  account  of  the 
frailty  and  insincerity  and  pretentiousness  of  some 
of  its  representatives,  than  there  is  to  renounce 
allegiance  to  city  or  state  or  nation  because  alder- 
men are  sometimes  rascals  and  legislators  have 
been  influenced  by  bribes.  That  there  are  good 
priests  and  bad  priests ;  sensible  clergymen  and 
foolish  clergymen ;  laymen  who  are  sincere  and 
laymen  who  are  insincere,  may  be  more  lamentable 
than  the  fact  that  there  are  intelligent  physicians 
and  quacks  ;  honest  lawyers  and  dishonest  lawyers ; 
competent  teachers  and  incompetent  teachers. 
But  neither  the  profession  of  the  ministry  or  of 
law  or  of  medicine  or  of  teaching  is  thereby  dis- 
credited. 

The  clear  recognition  of  the  function  of  the 
church  as  the  school  which  trains  and  educates 
mankind  in  the  spirit  of  social  service  makes  clear 
the  duty  of  the  individual  to  take  his  place  in  the 
church,  and  the  duty  of  society  to  generously 
support  it.  A  man  may  contrive  to  secure  a  fair 
secular  education  apart  from  the  secular  schools 
and  colleges.  Yet  in  neglecting  these  established 
educational  institutions,  he  places  himself  at  a 
great  disadvantage.  The  self-educated  man  is 
very  apt  to  be  narrow  and  one-sided ;  and  out  of 


1 84  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

touch  with  the  thought  and  interest  of  the 
educated  world.  And  even  if  he  succeeds  in 
thoroughly  educating  himself,  his  independence  of 
the  school  and  the  university  is  rather  apparent 
than  real.  For  even  then  he  must  read  the  books, 
enter  into  the  thoughts,  share  the  interests  of  the 
learned  world.  And  these  writings,  thoughts,  and 
interests  are  produced  and  developed  and  main- 
tained almost  wholly  by  the  institutions  of  learn- 
ing and  the  men  whom  these  institutions  train. 
So  that  even  the  self-educated  man  receives  all 
the  substance  of  his  education  indirectly  through 
the  established  educational  institutions  ;  and  dif- 
fers from  the  regular  graduate  of  these  institu- 
tions only  in  that  he  has  received  the  influence  of 
the  schools  at  second  hand. 

In  precisely  the  same  way  all  members  of  the 
Christian  community  owe  their  highest  ideals  and 
most  generous  principles  directly  or  indirectly  to 
the  church.  The  upright  and  virtuous  man  in  a 
Christian  community  who  stands  apart  from  the 
church  gets  his  spiritual  education  from  the 
church  at  second  hand.  Through  fathers  and 
mothers  who  have  been  rooted  and  grounded  in 
Christian  character  ;  through  ideals  and  standards 
which  have  been  laboriously  erected  by  centuries 
of  Christian  sacrifice  ;    through  laws  and  institu- 


SOCIOLOGICAL  1 85 

tions  which  are  founded  upon  Christian  principles  ; 
these  self-righteous  despisers  of  the  church  owe 
whatever  superior  virtue  they  possess  to  the  un- 
recognized influence  of  this  great  school  of  virtue. 
Individuals  here  and  there  may  live  upright, 
virtuous,  and  truly  Christian  lives  outside  of  the 
church  ;  just  as  individuals  here  and  there  develop 
genuine  scholarship  outside  of  the  universities. 
But  for  effective  influence  in  cultivating  the 
virtuous  disposition  in  others,  and  promoting  the 
social  spirit  in  the  community  at  large,  the  man 
who  stands  apart  from  the  church  in  a  merely 
individualistic  righteousness  is  almost  as  useless 
as  the  soldier  who  refuses  to  join  a  company  or 
regiment  or  army,  but  shoulders  his  individual 
musket  and  starts  out  to  fight  his  country's  battles 
on  his  own  account.  Society  without  the  organ- 
ized education  in  virtue  and  kindness  and  love 
which  the  church  affords  would  be  as  helpless 
against  the  disintegrating  forces  of  avarice  and 
lust  and  selfishness  and  sin,  as  a  city  without 
police  to  protect  it  against  crime,  or  a  nation  with- 
out an  army  to  defend  it  against  a  foreign  foe. 

There  are  two  modes  of  reception  into  the 
church.  The  one  presupposes  Christian  training 
in  the  home  and  the  community  ;  and  simply  con- 
firms the  character  and   faith   already  formed   by 


1 86  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

this  long  process  of  Christian  education.  The 
other  assumes  that  all  that  is  not  consciously 
Christian  must  be  totally  depraved ;  and  demands 
individual  profession  of  faith  and  conscious  experi- 
ence of  grace  as  a  condition  of  admission.  The 
former  method  affords  the  broader  basis  of  mem- 
bership ;  and  has  the  great  analogy  of  the  state's 
reception  of  its  citizens  upon  its  side.  The  latter 
method  secures  a  higher  average  of  piety  and  zeal 
in  its  membership  :  but  it  does  this  at  the  cost  of 
excluding  a  large  number  of  men  who,  while 
practically  Christian  in  the  purpose  and  tenor  of 
their  lives,  do  not  wear  their  hearts  upon  their 
sleeves,  and  hesitate  to  make  public  profession 
of  the  more  sentimental  aspects  of  their  per- 
sonal faith.  This  relegation  of  multitudes  of  the 
strongest,  most  efficient  members  of  the  commu- 
nity to  a  secondary  place,  as  members  of  the  par- 
ish but  not  members  of  the  church,  because  they 
have  not  at  some  stated  time  become  intensely 
conscious  of  a  great  and  sudden  spiritual  change, 
and  because  they  fail  to  express  their  faith  in 
public  prayer  and  pious  exhortation,  is  the  great 
weakness  of  churches  of  the  Congregational  or 
individualistic  type.  Democratic  in  their  internal 
organization,  they  set  up  a  sort  of  intellect- 
ual  or  emotional   aristocracy  as   the   condition  of 


SOCIOLOGICAL  1 87 

admission.  It  is  the  churches  which  are  organ- 
ized on  the  Episcopal  principle  which  have  the 
most  democratic  basis  of  fellowship  ;  and  gain 
the  strongest  hold  upon  all  sorts  and  conditions 
of  men. 

Membership  in  the  church  is  the  privilege  of  all 
who  accept  the  will  of  the  Father  as  the  rule  of 
their  lives  ;  who  acknowledge  Christ  as  the  revealer 
and  interpreter  of  the  Father's  will ;  and  who  re- 
ceive the  Spirit  of  love  as  the  substance  of  the  new 
life  in  which  the  will  of  the  Father  and  the  exam- 
ple of  the  Son  is  to  be  reproduced  in  themselves. 
Beyond  this  essential  spiritual  faith  and  trust  and 
love,  no  assent  to  elaborate  articles  of  intellectual 
belief  should  be  required.  If  belief  in  God  and 
confession  of  Christ  and  reception  of  the  Spirit  is 
not  sufficient  to  form  a  bond  of  union  between  the 
members  of  a  church,  no  assent  to  creed  or  profes- 
sion of  dogma  will  make  good  that  deficiency. 
Reliance  on  the  efficacy  of  a  creed  for  this  purpose 
is  virtual  distrust  of  the  Spirit. 

Creeds  indeed,  as  we  have  already  seen,  have 
their  place.  Just  as  nations  and  states  need  con- 
stitutions, written  or  implied  ;  just  as  political  par- 
ties need  platforms ;  so  the  church  needs  some 
formulation  of  its  principles  and  some  expression 
of  its  purpose.     Such  creeds  or  confessions,  how- 


iSS  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

ever,  should  be  regarded  as  the  general  sense  of 
the  majority,  not  as  binding  upon  the  conscience 
of  the  individual. 

A  theological  creed  must  in  the  nature  of  things 
always  be  more  or  less  behind  the  times.  Just 
because  it  is  the  conviction  of  the  many,  it  cannot 
adequately  represent  the  maturest  convictions  of 
the  most  competent  few.  A  creed  is  valuable  as  a 
conservative  force  to  preserve  what  is  precious  in 
the  thinking  of  the  past.  When,  however,  it  is  set 
up  as  a  barrier  to  the  progressive  thought  of  the 
present,  it  is  mischievous  and  pernicious.  Then 
belief  in  a  dead  creed  is  substituted  for  faith  in  the 
living  God :  and  the  church  relapses  into  stagna- 
tion and  decay. 

The  Bible  is  the  church's  most  precious  heritage. 
The  Bible  is  the  history  and  literary  expression  of 
the  life  of  God  in  humanity.  As  such,  it  is  the 
product'of  the  Holy  Spirit.  It  is  inspired.  There 
are  points  of  resemblance  and  points  of  difference 
between  the  inspiration  of  the  Bible  and  the  inspi- 
ration of  other  true  and  noble  writings.  In  all 
genuine  speech  the  truth  uttered  is  something 
larger  and  deeper  than  the  immediate  creation  of 
the  individual  speaker's  mind.  Unless  the  larger 
thought  of  the  community  and  the  deeper  truth  of 
nature  and  life  come  into  him  and  demand  utter- 


SOCIOLOGICAL  189 

ance  through  him,  he  can  have  nothing  of  impor- 
tance to  communicate,  and  has  no  right  to  speak. 
Yet  the  inspiration  of  the  Bible  is  deeper  and 
clearer  than  this  inspiration  which  is  common  to 
all  honest  literary  men.  It  is  the  added  inspira- 
tion of  love  and  worship  and  service,  which  in  very 
different  degrees  gives  to  the  Sacred  Scriptures 
the  peculiar  charm  and  authority  they  have. 
What  Matthew  Arnold  says  of  the  difference 
between  the  inspiration  of  Socrates  and  the  inspi- 
ration of  Jesus  is  true  in  a  general  way  of  the 
difference  between  the  inspiration  of  the  Bible 
and  the  inspiration  of  the  average  good  book. 
"  Socrates  inspired  boundless  friendship  and 
esteem  ;  but  the  inspiration  of  reason  and  con- 
science is  the  one  inspiration  which  comes  from 
him,  and  which  impels  us  to  live  righteously  as  he 
did.  A  penetrating  enthusiasm  of  love,  sympathy, 
pity,  adoration,  reinforcing  the  inspiration  of  rea- 
son and  duty,  does  not  belong  to  Socrates.  With 
Jesus  it  is  different."  The  authority  of  the  Bible 
rests  on  no  external  props  and  arbitrary  claims. 
It  proves  its  own  inspiration  and  authority  by  its 
power  beyond  all  other  books  to  quicken  and  sus- 
tain the  life  of  the  Spirit.  The  response  of  the 
Spirit  in  the  reader  is  the  witness  to  the  presence 
of  the  Spirit  in  the  writers  and  their  words.      For 


190  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

the  power  to  beget  holy  and  unselfish  living,  the 
power  to  inspire  brave  and  faithful  service,  the 
power  to  impart  enthusiastic  and  devoted  love  to 
God  and  to  one's  fellowmen  ;  —  this  is  ever  the 
prerogative  of  the  Holy  Spirit  ;  the  infallible 
proof  of  the  presence  of  the  Lord  and  Giver  of 
life. 

The  Bible  represents  the  high-water  mark  of  the 
spiritual  life.  It  is  pervaded  by  that  first  glow  of 
spiritual  enthusiasm  which  animated  the  hearts  of 
those  to  whom  the  revelation  of  the  Father  first 
came  with  a  freshness  and  simplicity  which  can  no 
more  again  be  equalled  or  surpassed  than  the  epics 
of  Homer,  or  the  statues  of  Phidias,  or  the  naivete 'of 
childhood.  Its  broad  foundation  in  the  most  intense 
and  ideal  of  national  histories  ;  its  genuine  reflec- 
tion of  the  profoundest  experiences  of  the  human 
heart  ;  its  realistic  reproduction  and  at  the  same 
time  its  ideal  interpretation  of  the  life  of  the 
Master,  and  its  presentation  of  the  straightforward 
letters  of  the  greatest  apostle,  combine  to  make  a 
single  book  composed  of  many  documents  of  which 
Professor  J.  R.  Seeley,  surely  no  partial  judge,  has 
truly  said,  "The  unity  reigning  through  a  work 
upon  which  so  many  generations  laboured,  gives  it 
a  vastness  beyond  comparison,  so  that  the  greatest 
work  of  individual  literary  genius  shows  by  the  side 


SOCIOLOGICAL  IQI 

of  it  like  some  building  of  human  hands  beside  the 
Peak  of  Teneriffe." 

The  church  may  honour  the  Bible,  just  as  a  man 
may  show  his  faith  in  a  nugget  of  gold,  in  either 
of  two  ways.  He  may  say,  "This  is  gold;  and 
because  it  is  such  a  precious  thing  I  will  not  trust 
it  in  so  dangerous  an  element  as  fire,  for  fear  that 
the  precious  thing  might  suffer  harm."  Or  he 
may  say,  "  This  is  gold  ;  and  because  it  is  gold  I 
will  not  hesitate  to  trust  it  to  the  flames  ;  for  fire 
can  do  pure  gold  no  harm."  The  church  may  say 
of  the  Bible,  "This  book  is  God's  gift  to  men;  and 
therefore  no  honest  criticism  shall  be  allowed  to 
touch  it."  Or  it  may  say,  "This  book  is  a  treas- 
ury of  messages  from  God  ;  and  therefore  the 
more  critically  it  is  tested  and  the  more  honestly 
it  is  examined  the  brighter  will  its  real  jewels 
shine  and  the  more  precious  will  the  whole  be- 
come." 

Nothing  short  of  the  most  artificial  and  perpet- 
ual and  superfluous  exercise  of  miraculous  power 
could  possibly  have  kept  a  book  written  in  different 
ages  and  in  different  literary  forms;  employing  the 
most  various  materials  ;  weaving  together  poetry 
and  prose,  legend  and  chronicle,  statute-books  and 
love  poems,  epics  and  lyrics,  oral  tradition  and 
idealized   interpretation,  fact   and   fiction,   precept 


192  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

and  parable,  from  accumulating  a  good  deal  of 
incidental  rubbish  in  the  process  of  composition, 
compilation,  and  transmission.  Reverent  appreci- 
ation of  the  Bible  as  our  ultimate  literary  expres- 
sion of  the  life  of  the  Spirit  does  not  compel  one 
to  accept  blindly  or  to  interpret  literally  every  nar- 
rative or  statement  it  contains.  Here,  as  in  all 
ancient  history  and  literature,  criticism  has  a  great 
sifting  process  to  perform.  And  the  more  search- 
ingly  and  thoroughly  this  is  done,  the  more  val- 
uable and  reliable  will  the  book  become.  It  is  a 
very  timid  and  feeble  faith  in  God,  amounting 
really  to  downright  unbelief,  which  fears  that 
honest  criticism  of  the  Bible  can  either  dis- 
credit the  book  or  lead  to  distrust  of  its  Author. 
Criticism  will  not  take  God  and  the  divine  life 
from  any  man  who  has  once  gained  the  stand- 
point of  spiritual  faith.  Those  to  whom  spirit- 
ual things  are  merely  matters  of  tradition  and 
hearsay  doubtless  may  have  the  insecurity  of 
their  position  revealed  to  them.  But  this  would 
not  be  a  permanent  misfortune.  If  a  man's  faith 
is  not  in  God,  but  in  some  dogma  or  tradition  or 
institution,  the  sooner  he  discovers  it  the  better. 
An  institution  whose  essential  life  is  so  internal 
and  spiritual  as  that  of  the  church  is  in  especial 
need    of   some    outward    and   visible    symbols    by 


SOCIOLOGICAL  1 93 

which  its  inner  purpose  may  be  visibly  expressed. 
The  church  has  two  such  symbols  or  sacraments  : 
baptism,  and  the  Lord's  supper. 

Baptism  is  the  seal  and  symbol  of  regeneration  ;  — 
the  putting  away  of  the  natural,  selfish,  individual- 
istic life,  and  the  reception  of  the  life  of  the  Spirit. 
The  original  method  was  doubtless,  as  a  rule,  that 
of  immersion.  In  a  warm  climate,  among  peoples 
who  live  much  out  of  doors,  this  is  the  natural  and 
convenient  method.  In  cold  climates,  on  the  other 
hand,  where  indoor  life  is  habitual,  sprinkling  is 
the  method  which  common-sense  approves.  The 
amount  of  material  employed  in  a  purely  symbolic 
act  is  a  matter  of  indifference.  A  signature  to  a 
note  does  not  depend  for  its  validity  on  whether 
it  is  written  with  a  quill  in  bold  John  Hancock 
fashion,  or  is  traced  most  delicately  with  a  fine 
gold  pen. 

The  extension  of  the  rite .  to  infants  is  not 
directly  sanctioned  in  Scripture,  except  by  impli- 
cation, as  children  may  be  assumed  to  be  in- 
cluded in  the  household.  It  is  not  logically 
deducible  from  the  spiritual  significance  of  the 
rite.  And  yet  it  sprang  up  out  of  an  instinct 
of  the  parental  heart  which  we  can  scarcely  be- 
lieve that  he  who  said  "  Suffer  the  little  chil- 
dren to  come  unto  me,  and  forbid  them  not," 
o 


194  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

would  rebuke  or  repress.  Little  children  have 
always  been  a  puzzle  to  the  logician  and  the 
theologian.  They  are  not  logical ;  and  their  the- 
ology is  very  crude.  But  if  Christian  parents 
desire  to  solemnly  dedicate  their  little  ones  to 
God  and  the  divine  life,  in  anticipation  of  the 
ratification  and  confirmation  which  maturity  will 
bring,  there  surely  can  be  no  serious  objection; 
and  the  bonds  that  bind  the  child's  heart  to  Christ 
cannot  be  too  early  formed. 

As  baptism  marks  the  renunciation  of  self  and 
the  world  as  the  determining  principles  of  con- 
duct, the  Lord's  supper  is  the  symbol  of  com- 
munion with  Christ  and  his  followers  as  the 
inspiration  of  the  new  life.  There  is  nothing 
magical  or  miraculous  about  this  most  simple  and 
natural  of  rites.  Christ  is  present  in  the  elements 
just  as  the  writer  of  a  letter  is  present  in  the 
writing.  The  reading  of  the  letter  is  the  recep- 
tion of  the  writer's  mind  and  heart.  We  receive 
Christ  in  the  bread  and  wine  just  as  wc  receive 
a  friend  when  we  clasp  his  hand.  All  communion 
between  persons  must  be  by  symbols.  As  Pro- 
fessor Dewey  says  in  his  Psychology,  "  The  first 
step  in  the  communication  of  a  fact  of  individual 
consciousness  is  changing  it  from  a  psychical  fact 
to  a  physical  fact.     It  must  be  expressed  through 


SOCIOLOGICAL  1 95 

non-conscious  media  —  the  appearance  of  the  face, 
or  the  use  of  sounds.  These  are  purely  external. 
The  next  step  in  the  communication  is  for  some 
other  individual  to  translate  this  expression,  or 
these  sounds,  into  his  own  consciousness.  He 
must  make  them  part  of  himself  before  he  knows 
what  they  are.  One  individual  never  knows 
directly  what  is  in  the  self  of  another ;  he 
knows  it  only  so  far  as  he  is  able  to  reproduce 
it  in  his  own  self." 

Jesus,  in  instituting  the  Lord's  supper,  has 
simply  made  universal  the  communication  of  his 
sacrificial  love.  He  has  made  the  bread  and  wine 
forever,  and  to  all  who  receive  it,  the  symbol  and 
expression  of  the  life  he  lived  and  the  death  he 
suffered  in  love  to  all  mankind.  In  itself  it  is 
mere  bread  and  wine.  Translated  by  the  intelli- 
gent and  devout  recipient  into  terms  of  the  love 
and  sacrifice  it  is  intended  to  express,  it  becomes 
the  bread  of  life  and  the  wine  of  love  to  as  many 
as  receive  it  in  this  faith.  Being  an  objective  in- 
stitution, coming  at  stated  times  and  places,  it  is 
independent  of  the  wayward  caprice,  the  fickle 
mood,  the  ltstless  mind  of  the  individual.  And  so 
it  calls  us  back  from  our  worldliness,  deepens  our 
penitence,  quickens  our  love,  and  intensifies  our 
consecration;  and,  above  all,  identifies  us  with  the 


196  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

great  company  of  our  fellow-Christians,  as  no 
mere  subjective  devotion  and  private  prayer  could 
ever  do. 

Jesus  recognized  the  truth  that  everything  spir- 
itual, if  it  is  to  become  a  permanent  force  in  prac- 
tical life,  must  be  embodied  in  outward  and  visible 
and  tangible  symbols.  And  at  the  same  time  he 
has  guarded  as  far  as  possible  against  the  super- 
stitious perversion  of  his  symbols  by  choosing  the 
most  simple  and  universal  elements  and  the  most 
common  and  natural  of  acts  to  be  the  vehicles  of 
his  grace. 

The  Sabbath,  Good  Friday,  Easter,  and  Christ- 
mas are  among  the  days  which  the  church  has 
reasonably  and  rightly  claimed  for  its  own  spiritual 
purposes.  As  such  they  have  sacred  associations 
for  those  who  share  the  Christian  faith.  Of  these 
sacred  days  the  Sabbath,  by  virtue  of  its  frequency, 
its  universality,  and  its  associations  with  regular 
and  systematic  worship,  is  by  far  the  most  impor- 
tant. The  Sabbath  is  as  fundamental  to  the  church 
as  is  election  day  to  the  state,  or  pay-day  to  indus- 
try. All  Christians  welcome  this  day  as  the  great 
opportunity  for  the  free  and  full  expression  of  their 
faith  and  hope  and  love ;  and  the  extension  to 
others  of  the  blessings  which  they  themselves 
enjoy.      Abstinence  from  needless  work,  and  the 


SOCIOLOGICAL 


97 


release  of  others  from  all  unnecessary  labour,  is 
essential  to  the  best  uses  of  the  clay.  The  civil 
authorities  may  rightly  be  invoked  to  secure  for 
as  many  as  possible  opportunity  for  worship  and 
rest  and  refreshment  upon  the  Sabbath.  Beyond 
the  prevention  of  whatever  interferes  with  the 
rights  of  others  the  church  cannot  wisely  go  in  the 
attempt  to  dictate  to  those  who  do  not  share  its 
faith  the  manner  in  which  they  shall  spend  the  day. 
The  Sabbath  was  made  for  man  ;  not  man  for  the 
Sabbath.  And  the  improvement  of  the  Sabbath 
through  the  improvement  of  man,  rather  than  the 
improvement  of  man  through  the  enforced  improve- 
ment of  the  Sabbath,  is  the  more  hopeful  line  of 
effort.  Productive  industry,  except  in  cases  where 
processes  are  of  necessity  continuous,  or  where 
materials  cannot  be  left  without  serious  waste, 
should  be  prohibited  on  the  Sabbath  ;  not  only  in 
the  interest  of  the  church,  but  in  the  interest  of 
that  common  humanity  which  it  is  the  purpose  of 
the  church  to  serve.  The  Sabbath  is  the  working- 
man's  best  friend  ;  and  it  should  be  the  aim  of  the 
church  to  secure  for  him  the  largest  possible  im- 
munity from  toil  upon  that  day.  The  observance 
of  the  Sabbath  should  be  joyous,  free,  and  uncon- 
strained. In  this  as  in  everything,  the  man  who  is 
filled  with  the  Spirit ;   the  man  who  seeks  to  make 


I98  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

his  life  effective  in  social  service,  may  do  whatever 
he  pleases  on  the  Sabbath  ;  and  whether  he  stays 
at  home  or  goes  abroad ;  whether  he  fasts  or 
feasts ;  —  whatever  he  does  will  be  right  and 
appropriate,  because  it  will  be  prompted  by  love 
to  God  and  love  to  man.  On  the  contrary,  any 
observance  of  the  day  which  is  not  grounded  in 
this  glad  recognition  of  the  goodness  of  God  and 
the  fellowship  of  man,  whether  it  be  gay  or 
gloomy,  riotous  or  repressed,  is  injurious  to  man 
and  dishonouring  to  God.  Worship,  rest,  and 
refreshment ;  worship  that  includes  thoughtful 
regard  for  the  rights  and  needs  of  one's  fellow- 
men  ;  rest  that  restores  and  invigorates  the 
powers  of  body  and  of  mind  for  service  in  the 
days  to  come  ;  refreshment  that  binds  the  family 
closer  together  in  common  joys  and  mutual  inter- 
ests and  heartfelt  sympathies,  and  lifts  the  indi- 
vidual out  of  the  isolation  of  his  merely  animal 
existence,  —  these  are  the  social  purposes  which 
the  Sabbath  is  instituted  to  subserve. 

Every  institution  must  have  some  sort  of  consti- 
tution or  polity.  Every  body  must  have  some  form 
of  organization  and  some  kind  of  authority.  Polity 
is  a  means,  not  an  end  ;  and  that  polity  is  best 
which  binds  together  the  members  of  the  church 
most  effectively  for  their  common  work  and  wor- 


SOCIOLOGICAL 


I99 


ship,  and  at  the  same  time  leaves  them  most  free 
in  the  development  of  their  individual  characters 
and  lives.  A  polity  is  none  the  better  for  being 
ancient  and  primitive.  The  apostles  in  their  first 
attempt  at  ecclesiastical  organization  resorted  to 
the  crudest  conceivable  device  for  the  election  of 
an  officer ;  a  device  which  had  been  a  favourite 
object  of  ridicule  with  Socrates,  as  it  was  applied 
in  his  day  in  Athenian  politics;  —  the  election 
of  an  officer  by  lot.  If  when  monarchical  ideas 
were  dominant  in  the  state,  the  primitive  church 
adopted  an  Episcopal  form  of  government,  it  does 
not  follow  that  episcopacy  is  the  best  polity  in  a 
democratic  age.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  the  little 
groups  of  believers  were  organized  on  the  Congre- 
gational plan  in  the  early  days  when  the  infant 
church  could  count  but  few  adherents,  it  does 
not  follow  that  that  form  of  polity  is  the  one  best 
fitted  to  organize  the  universal  church  and  to 
conduct  world-wide  activities.  The  organization 
of  the  primitive  church  is  an  interesting  problem 
for  the  church  historian.  The  organization  of  the 
church  to-day  is  a  practical  problem  which  Chris- 
tian common-sense  must  settle  for  itself.  What- 
ever polity  will  afford  the  maximum  of  unity  and 
efficiency  with  the  minimum  of  machinery  and 
constraint,  should  be  accepted  as  the  ideal  to  be 


200  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

realized  as  rapidly  as  historic  traditions  and  exist- 
ing conditions  will  permit. 

The  church  has  offices  which  bear  different 
names  in  different  communions.  The  most  im- 
portant of  these  offices  is  that  of  the  priesthood  or 
ministry.  The  office  of  the  priest  is  not  quite  the 
same  as  that  of  the  minister.  The  priest  conceives 
himself  to  be  the  official  representative  of  Christ ; 
and  as  such  is  prepared  to  hear  confession  and 
pronounce  absolution.  The  minister  conceives 
himself  to  be  the  herald  or  messenger  of  Christ ; 
and  as  such  preaches  and  proclaims  the  message 
of  forgiveness  and  inspiration ;  but  refers  his 
hearers  directly  to  Christ  for  the  guidance  and 
grace  they  need. 

The  priest's  conception  of  his  function  is  the 
more  profound  and  vital :  but  for  that  very  reason 
it  is  the  more  liable  to  perversion.  It  has  been 
fruitful  of  the  most  haughty  pride,  the  most 
extravagant  pretensions,  the  most  tyrannical  domi- 
nation, the  most  mercenary  extortion  on  the  part 
of  sacerdotalists  who  have  grasped  the  power 
without  cultivating  the  humility  and  sympathy  on 
which  the  right  exercise  of  such  a  high  prerogative 
depends.  The  minister's  conception  of  his  func- 
tion as  chiefly  that  of  preaching  is  more  superfi- 
cial :  but  on  that  account  less  open  to  abuse  and 


SOCIOLOGICAL  20 1 

misconception.  Still  there  is  great  danger  that 
the  preacher  will  come  to  regard  his  sermon  as  an 
end  rather  than  as  a  means;  and  that  in  place  of 
what  he  regards  as  the  idolatry  of  the  altar,  he 
will  introduce  the  idolatry  of  eloquence  and  ora- 
tory. When  the  sermon  thus  becomes  an  end  in 
itself,  throwing  the  service  of  prayer  and  praise 
into  the  background,  preaching  degenerates  into 
the  hollowest  and  emptiest  of  forms,  and  merely 
presents 

"  a  painted  ship 
Upon  a  painted  ocean. " 

The  conceptions  of  the  priesthood  and  of  the 
ministry  are  complementary  half-truths.  Christ 
and  the  Spirit  are  present  in  regenerated  humanity 
so  immediately  and  intimately  that  when  the  true 
priest  absolves  a  penitent  he  therein  imparts 
directly  the  divine  forgiveness.  Yet  the  priest 
needs  to  remember  that  this  absolution  is  no 
magical  performance,  but  is  the  expression  of 
sacrificial  love ;  and  he  should  spare  no  effort  of 
mind  and  heart  to  impress  upon  the  penitent  the 
cost  of  sacrifice  and  the  depth  of  love  which  makes 
forgiveness  possible.  On  the  other  hand,  hearing 
is  essential  to  believing.  Yet  the  preacher  needs 
to  remember  that  mere  hearing,  apart  from  per- 
sonal   repentance    and    intimate    appropriation    of 


202  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

grace  and  actual  reception  of  the  Spirit,  is  idle 
and  profitless. 

The  minister,  like  every  true  Christian,  is  a 
servant  of  his  fellow-men.  The  minister  differs 
from  other  Christians  simply  in  that  he  serves 
them  in  the  highest  way,  and  ministers  to  them 
in  purely  spiritual  things.  It  is  his  function  to 
give  embodiment  and  expression  to  that  Spirit 
of  love,  fellowship,  forgiveness,  inspiration,  and 
grace  which  is  the  life  of  society,  and  is  striving 
for  admission  to  the  hearts  and  homes  of  men. 
The  office  is  no  substitute  for  the  spiritual  life 
of  him  who  holds  it ;  though  what  the  office 
signifies  may  do  its  beneficent  work  in  spite  of 
the  unworthiness  of  the  incumbent.  Yet  the 
richest  fruit  of  the  Christian  ministry  can  only 
come  when  the  Spirit,  acting  through  the  officer 
of  the  church,  is  reinforced  by  the  same  Spirit, 
acting  through  the  heart  and  conscience  of  the 
man.  Such  a  priesthood  or  ministry  as  that  is 
the  highest,  purest,  noblest,  and  most  blessed 
form  of  social  service.  It  is  a  reproduction  of 
the  personal  life  and  a  continuation  of  the 
spiritual  work  of  Christ. 

The  division  of  the  church  into  sects,  which  is 
so  marked  a  characteristic  of  the  present  time, 
represents  the  extreme  consequences  of  the  prac- 


SOCIOLOGICAL  203 

tical  application  of  that  principle  of  individual 
liberty  and  the  right  of  private  judgment  which 
was  affirmed  in  the  Reformation,  and  has  been 
reaffirmed  in  the  political  revolutions  in  France 
and  America.  Politically  that  principle  received 
its  needed  check  when  the  doctrine  of  secession 
was  defeated  in  our  civil  war.  Liberty  has  been 
sufficiently  affirmed  ;  and  the  problem  of  the 
present  is  to  advance  "from  liberty  to  unity." 

The  sects  have  arisen  through  the  differentia- 
tion of  the  Christian  principle,  and  the  attempt  to 
develop  special  organs  for  special  forms  of  work 
and  peculiar  types  of  temperament.  God  and  his 
truth  are  very  great  :  man  and  the  average  mind 
of  man  are  very  small.  The  best  of  us  get  but 
partial  glimpses  of  his  glory.  One  sees  one  aspect 
of  the  divine  ;  another,  another.  Each  has  some 
line  of  strength  ;  each  some  weakness,  peculiar  to 
itself.  As  the  colours  of  the  solar  spectrum  are  so 
many  partial  reflections  of  the  white  light  of  the 
sun,  so  the  sects  are  so  many  partial  apprehen- 
sions of  the  one  great  fact  of  the  love  of  God 
manifested  in  Jesus  Christ,  and  imparted  to 
humanity  as  the  Spirit  of  a  new  life  of  human 
love. 

None  of  them  is  perfect.  It  is  easy  to  point 
out    defects.     The    Congregationalist    has    not   a 


204  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

sufficiently  coherent  polity.  The  Baptist  has  not 
a  sufficiently  broad  basis  of  fellowship.  The 
Methodist  has  not  a  sufficiently  edifying  grasp 
of  the  ethical  and  spiritual  principles  upon  which 
permanent  character  must  rest.  The  Episco- 
palian has  not  a  sufficiently  democratic  concep- 
tion of  the  sources  of  spiritual  authority.  The 
Unitarian  has  not  a  sufficiently  definite  body  of 
doctrine.  The  Presbyterian  has  not  a  sufficiently 
receptive  attitude  toward  historical  and  scientific 
investigation.  The  Universalist  has  not  a  suffi- 
ciently keen  sense  of  the  responsibilities  of  human 
freedom.  The  Roman  Catholic  has  not  sufficient 
respect  for  human  reason,  and  the  rights  of  the 
individual  man. 

Yet  each  of  these  forms  of  church  has  arisen  to 
meet  definite  needs  in  the  history  of  Christian 
thought  and  life.  Each  has  borne  especial  wit- 
ness to  some  essential  element  of  the  catholic 
faith. 

The  Congregationalist  has  stood  for  simplicity 
of  worship,  clear  theological  ideas,  and  the  su- 
preme authority  of  a  rationally  interpreted  Bible 
as  against  all  meaningless  formalities,  all  doubtful 
traditions,  all  mystical  interpretations.  The  Bap- 
tist has  protested  against  all  cheapening  and 
change  in  the  divinely  ordained  sacraments.     The 


SOCIOLOGICAL  205 

Methodist  has  kept  live  coals  upon  the  altar  of 
Christian  consecration  in  hearts  and  homes  and 
hamlets,  which  otherwise  would  have  been  dreary 
and  desolate,  and  the  way  of  repentance  open  to 
multitudes  of  wanderers  who  without  it  had  been 
lost.  The  Episcopalian  has  preserved  the  decency 
and  order  of  dignified  worship,  and  an  organic 
fellowship,  in  an  iconoclastic  and  individualistic 
age.  The  Presbyterian  has  made  clear  how  love- 
less a  creature  man  is  apart  from  God ;  traced 
minutely  the  process  by  which  the  grace  of  Christ 
gains  entrance  to  the  soul  ;  marked  off  precisely 
the  stages  of  the  Spirit's  conquest  ;  and  so  kept 
right  teaching  or  orthodoxy  alive  when  doubt  and 
unbelief  have  been  widespread.  The  Unitarian 
has  affirmed  the  right  of  free  inquiry  when  others 
have  distrusted  the  God-sdven  faculties  of  man. 
The  Universalist  has  clung  to  the  grace  of  God 
when  others  have  made  him  almost  a  demon  in 
the  severity  of  his  arbitrary  rule.  The  Catholic 
has  held  the  strong  arm  of  spiritual  authority  over 
great  masses  of  men  and  women,  who  would  have 
found  little  restraint  or  guidance  in  the  more 
speculative  and  individualistic  types  of  Protestant 
religion. 

Sects  are  evil  only  when  they  become  sectarian ; 
that  is,  when  differences  of  apprehension  count  for 


206  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

more  than  the  object  apprehended;  when  every- 
thing is  spent  on  fences,  while  the  fields  them- 
selves are  given  over  to  weeds  and  briers. 

Inherited  associations  are  stronger  than  abstract 
ideas.  The  attempt  to  bring  the  denominations 
together  by  compromise  creeds,  compromise  poli- 
ties, union  houses,  and  union  meetings  gives  little 
promise  of  success.  The  union  of  the  churches, 
for  the  near  future  at  least,  must  consist  in  a 
unity  of  spirit  and  a  cooperation  in  work.  In  this 
direction  there  is  good  ground  for  hope. 

The  first  step  toward  such  unity  of  spirit  and 
work  is  a  geniune  and  hearty  respect  for  the 
points  of  excellence  in  other  forms  of  church  life 
as  well  as  in  our  own.  In  polity,  for  example, 
the  two  fundamental  types  are  the  Episcopal  and 
the  Congregational.  The  strong  point  in  Episco- 
pal polity  lies  in  its  recognition  that  the  mind  and 
heart  of  the  church  in  all  lands  and  ages  is  a 
better  interpreter  of  the  mind  of  Christ  than  is 
the  individual  believer  and  the  local  church.  The 
strong  point  in  Congregational  polity  is  its  asser- 
tion that  the  mind  of  Christ  does  find  expression 
in  the  hearts  of  individual  believers  here  and  now. 
Both  these  positions  are  true  and  important. 
Both  may  be  carried  to  extreme  and  dangerous 
lengths.       Let    each    respect   the    other ;  let  each 


SOCIOLOGICAL  20y 

ingraft  upon  his  own  system  the  good  points  of 
the  other,  and  gradually  the  two  extremes  will 
be  brought  together.  We  see  this  tendency 
already.  The  Episcopal  bishops  interfere  much 
less  than  formerly  in  the  internal  affairs  of  the 
local  churches;  and  the  Congregational  churches 
are  giving  to  their  missionary  secretaries  and 
the  heads  of  their  benevolent  societies  more 
and  more  of  the  authority  of  bishops. 

The  two  opposite  types  of  worship  are  the 
Roman  Catholic  and  the  Quaker.  One  makes 
liberal  use  of  sensuous  symbols  ;  the  other  limits 
the  expression  of  worship  more  or  less  strictly 
to  extemporaneous  speech.  Both  tendencies  have 
their  worth  and  their  dangers.  Both  are  symbolic, 
as  all  forms  of  worship  must  be.  Even  extempo- 
raneous speech  uses  vibrations  of  air  as  the  sym- 
bol of  thought  and  feeling.  Why  are  vibrations 
of  air  striking  the  ear  essentially  more  holy  than 
vibrations  of  ether  striking  the  eye,  or  even  parti- 
cles of  incense  impinging  on  the  olfactory  nerve  ? 
Speech  is  doubtless  the  more  adequate  and  subtle 
and  universal  symbol.  But  it  is  just  as  truly  a 
symbol  as  the  wearing  of  a  vestment,  the  swinging 
of  a  censer,  or  a  posture  of  the  body.  Here, 
again,  we  may  observe  the  non-ritualistic  churches 
enriching  their  barren  services  by  the  larger  use 


208  SOCIAL  THEOD  >GY 

of  ritualistic  elements ;  and  we  may  expect  a 
larger  recognition  of  the  place  of  spontaneity  in 
worship  on  the  part  of  ritualists. 

Thus  there  is  a  work  in  the  direction  of  union 
which  each  individual  can  do  within  his  own 
denomination ;  in  casting  out  the  arbitrary,  fan- 
tastic, and  divisive  practices  and  doctrines  that 
tradition  and  bigotry  have  fastened  upon  it,  and 
ingrafting  upon  it  the  better  fruits  in  which  other 
denominations  excel  his  own. 

If  he  is  a  Presbyterian,  his  first  duty  is  to  labour 
for  liberty  of  thought  and  the  right  of  investiga- 
tion ;  if  a  Unitarian,  for  clear  conviction  of  defi- 
nite religious  truth  ;  if  a  Baptist,  for  breadth  of 
Christian  fellowship  and  emphasis  upon  essentials; 
if  a  Methodist,  for  rational  conviction  rather  than 
emotional  expression  of  his  faith  ;  if  a  Universal- 
ist,  for  keener  sense  of  the  fateful  pregnancy  of 
choice  ;  if  a  Catholic,  for  liberty  and  local  self- 
government  ;  if  a  Congregationalism  for  larger 
recognition  of  the  organic  nature  of  society  and 
social  institutions ;  if  an  Episcopalian,  for  that 
emancipation  from  the  leading-strings  of  doubtful 
tradition  and  fantastic  frivolity,  and  that  reliance 
upon  spiritual  realities  and  practical  common- 
sense  of  which  Bishop  Brooks  was  the  conspicuous 
representative. 


SOCIOLOGICAL  209 

The  extension  of  itself  by  missionary  effort  is 
always  an  important  branch  of  church  activity. 
And  in  this  work  there  is  the  most  urgent  need 
of  the  substitution  of  cooperation  for  competition. 

Especially  in  home  missionary  work  in  rural 
regions  such  cooperation  is  essential.  However 
valuable  and  natural  the  differentiation  of  the 
church  into  sects  along  lines  of  tradition  or  creed 
or  temperament  may  be  in  the  city  and  large 
town,  it  is  too  expensive  a  luxury  for  rural  dis- 
tricts to  indulge  in.  In  every  line  of  enterprise, 
the  methods  best  adapted  to  the  city  are  not 
those  best  adapted  to  the  country.  The  graded 
system  of  schools,  which  is  the  glory  of  public 
education  in  cities  and  large  towns,  would  be  the 
ruin  of  sparsely  settled  regions.  The  district 
school  must  teach  all  grades.  The  city  can  afford 
to  have  one  store  for  dry  goods,  one  for  groceries, 
one  for  boots  and  shoes,  one  for  music,  one  for 
millinery.  But  the  country  store  must  keep  every- 
thing, from  pins  and  peppermints  to  shovels  and 
horse-rakes.  The  church  of  Christ  cannot  afford 
to  spend  its  money  in  carrying  some  special 
variety  of  the  Gospel  to  communities  which  have 
more  varieties  than  they  can  support  already. 
Yet  that  is  what  we  have  been  doing  for  years. 
.And,  in  consequence,  we  find  throughout  the  rural 


2IO  SOCIAL   THEOLOGY 

regions  needless  organizations,  empty  churches, 
half-paid  ministers,  wasted  strength,  scattered 
resources.  We  do  not  find  in  these  communities 
strong,  vigorous  churches,  uniting  the  intelligence, 
the  resources,  the  society  of  the  whole  village  in 
uplifting  worship,  hearty  good-fellowship,  dignified 
social  life,  and  aggressive  Christian  work. 

The  duty  of  cooperation  in  church  exten- 
sion is  imperative  from  every  point  of  view. 
We  owe  it  to  the  contributors  who  support 
home  missions.  The  contributions  for  home 
missions  in  the  United  States  for  1890  were 
$6,717,558.03.  At  the  very  lowest  estimate  one 
quarter  of  this  sum  (if  you  could  pick  out  the 
right  quarter,  the  quarter  that  went  for  the  sup- 
port of  superfluous  churches)  would  have  done 
more  good  if  it  had  been  cast  into  the  depths  of 
the  sea.  It  was  spent  not  for  the  building  up  of 
the  kingdom  of  God,  but  for  the  building  up  of 
particular  denominations  at  the  expense  of  and 
to  the  injury  of  the  kingdom  of  God. 

We  owe  it  to  the  brave  and  devoted  mission- 
aries who  are  working  to  keep  the  old  towns  of 
the  East  and  the  new  towns  of  the  West  faithful 
to  the  standards  of  Christian  living.  They  have 
responded  to  the  call  of  the  church  for  volunteers 
in  its  most  arduous  service.     Like  loyal    soldiers 


SOCIOLOGICAL  2  I  I 

of  the    cross,  they   have   gone  where    their   com- 
manders have  ordered  : 

"  Not  though  the  soldier  knew 
Some  one  had  blunder'd. 
Theirs  not  to  make  reply, 
Theirs  not  to  reason  why, 
Theirs  but  to  do  and  die." 

Alas !  in  this  case  it  is  not  that  some  one  has 
blundered.  Our  whole  plan  of  founding  churches 
in  rivalry  and  maintaining  them  in  competition  is 
one  gigantic  blunder.  And  a  large  proportion 
of  the  men  who  enlist  for  missionary  service 
under  this  system  are  betrayed  into  needless 
sacrifice  for  a  hopeless  cause ;  needless,  because 
a  wiser  policy  of  cooperation  would  have  per- 
mitted others  to  do  the  work  which  they  were 
sent  to  do  ;  hopeless,  because  there  is  not  enough 
material  for  all  the  labourers  to  work  upon  to  good 
advantage. 

In  business  such  blunders  bring  bankruptcy. 
In  war,  such  blunders  cost  officers  their  commis- 
sions. We  owe  it  to  oar  noble  army  of  mission- 
aries, home  and  foreign,  to  adopt  a  policy  of 
cooperation  which  shall  guarantee  to  every  man 
who  enters  the  service  that  his  life  shall  not  be 
spent    in    vain. 

We  owe  it   to   the    people   whom    we    seek    to 


212  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

evangelize.  It  is  not  of  much  use  to  make  a 
man  a  Republican  or  a  Democrat  unless  you  also 
make  him  a  patriotic  citizen.  It  is  not  of  much 
use  to  make  a  man  a  Baptist  or  an  Episcopalian, 
unless  you  also  make  him  a  Christian.  Yet  the 
tendency  of  the  minute  subdivision  of  the  church 
in  small  towns  is  to  make  men  sectarians  without 
making  them  Christians.  There  is  enough  that  is 
petty  and  narrow  in  rural  life,  without  introduc- 
ing into  it  sectarian  rivalry  and  strife. 

We  owe  it  to  Christ  and  our  common  Chris- 
tianity. Christ  came  not  to  be  ministered  unto, 
but  to  minister.  The  church  should  do  likewise, 
or  else  do  nothing.  Unless  the  church  can  be  a 
benefactor  to  the  spiritual  life  of  a  community, 
unless  it  can  be  a  leader  of  its  daily  work,  a  law- 
giver to  its  business  and  political  morality,  a 
sanctifier  of  its  social  life,  an  educator  of  its 
youth  in  virtue,  a  comforter  of  its  homes  in 
sorrow,  a  safeguard  of  its  manhood  against  temp- 
tation, it  has  no  business  there.  Yet  under  the 
system  of  rivalry,  these  cannot  be  the  most 
prominent  features  which  the  church  presents. 

It  is  as  circulators  of  subscription-papers,  as 
managers  of  competing  festivals  and  fairs,  as  orig- 
inators of  rival  money-making  devices,  as  centres 
of  oratorical,  musical,  or  ceremonial  attractions  that 


SOCIOLOGICAL  213 

these  superfluous  aud  feeble  churches  figure  in 
the  public  eye.  We  must  adopt  the  policy  of 
planting  strong,  self-respecting,  self-supporting, 
community-serving  churches  where  they  are 
needed,  in  place  of  the  wretched  policy  of  thrust- 
ing in  mendicant,  impotent,  self-seeking,  com- 
munity-plundering churchlings  where  they  are 
not  needed.  The  churches  should  not  stand  as 
beggars  asking  alms  alike  of  saint  and  sinner, 
but  be  a  mighty  power  to  help  the  poor  man, 
be  he  virtuous  or  vicious,  and  to  rebuke  and  awe 
the  knave  and  the  oppressor,  whether  he  be  poor 
or  rich. 

Hundreds  of  abandoned  churches,  thousands  of 
superfluous  organizations,  millions  of  squandered 
money,  hosts  of  martyr  missionaries,  proclaim 
the  need  of  radical  reform.  Christian  coopera- 
tion in  church  extension  is  no  far-off  vision  of 
a  formal  union ;  no  speculative  theory  of  an 
ultimate  catholic  church.  It  is  a  plain  duty 
which  the  churches  as  they  are  now  con- 
stituted can  and  ought  to  do  at  once.  That 
the  doing  of  this  duty  now  will  lead  to  large 
results  in  the  future  we  may  well  believe.  That 
it  will  at  once  reduce  to  uniformity  the  diverse 
forms  of  church  life  which  exist  to-day,  no  one 
need  fear.      We  may,  however,  speedily  bring  to 


214  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

pass  what  is  more  in  harmony  with  the  organic 
life  of  nature,  with  the  trend  of  history,  with 
the  spirit  of  our  civil  government.  We  may 
develop,  not  the  unity  which  is  a  dead  and 
monotonous  absence  of  difference  ;  not  the 
unity  which  is  a  shallow  and  superficial  ignoring 
of  difference  ;  not  the  unity  which  is  an  arbitrary 
and  tyrannical  suppression  of  difference  :  but  the 
deeper,  richer,  mightier  unity  which  is  founded  on 
difference,  and  is  expressed  through  the  har- 
monious cooperation  of  many  members  in  one 
common  life.  The  dream  of  an  American  church 
may  be  as  idle  as  the  dream  of  an  American 
empire.  Yet,  as  out  of  the  voluntary  conference 
of  independent  colonies  for  defence  against  a 
common  foe,  and  the  establishment  of  a  mutually 
profitable  commerce,  there  has  grown  the  union 
of  the  United  States,  with  supreme  authority  in 
national  affairs  ;  so  out  of  the  cooperation  of  inde- 
pendent denominations  against  the  common  foe 
of  sin  and  for  the  establishment  of  that  Christian 
righteousness  which  is  the  common  object  of 
them  all,  may  be  raised  up  the  united  churches 
of  America,  clothed  with  the  supreme  authority 
of  wisdom  and  of  love,  to  guide  and  guard  the 
spiritual  interests  of  the  land. 


CHAPTER    VIII 

ENJOYMENT     AND     SERVICE THE    REDEMPTION     OF 

THE   WORLD 

The  divine  life  does  not  consist  in  preaching 
and  praying  and  singing  psalms  :  though  these  are 
important  and  well-nigh  essential  means  of  keep- 
ing it  alive  and  fostering  its  growth  and  promot- 
ing its  extension.  The  spiritual  life  is  composed 
of  solider  stuff  than  cadences  and  candles,  music 
and  millinery ;  though  these  may  serve  for  its 
decoration  and  embellishment.  If  the  church  is 
the  form  ;  the  family,  industry,  economics,  politics, 
education,  society,  constitute  the  solid  substance 
on  which  that  form  must  be  impressed  and  in 
which  it  must  be  realized. 

This  glorious  work  of  helping  to  complete  God's 
fair  creation  ;  this  high  task  of  making  human  life 
and  human  society  the  realization  of  the  Father's 
loving  will  for  all  his  children  ;  —  this  is  the  real 
substance  of  the  spiritual  life,  of  which  the  ser- 
vices and  devotions  of  the  church  are  but  the  out- 
ward form.     Each  has  its  value  in  relation  to  the 

215 


2l6  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

other.  They  ought  not  to  be  separated.  Yet  if 
we  can  have  but  one,  social  service  is  of  infinitely 
more  worth  than  pious  profession.  As  Jesus  tells 
us  in  one  of  his  parables  :  "  A  man  had  two  sons  ; 
and  he  came  to  the  first,  and  said,  Son,  go  work 
to-day  in  the  vineyard.  And  he  answered  and  said, 
I  will  not  :  but  afterward  he  repented  himself,  and 
went.  And  he  came  to  the  second,  and  said  like- 
wise. And  he  answered  and  said,  I  go,  sir :  and 
went  not.  Whether  of  the  twain  did  the  will  of 
his  father?  They  say,  The  first.  Jesus  saith  unto 
them,  Verily  I  say  unto  you  [and  it  applies  to  all 
mere  ecclesiastics  the  world  over]  that  the  publi- 
cans and  the  harlots  go  into  the  kingdom  of  God 
before  you." 

One  of  the  first-fruits  of  the  Spirit,  as  Paul  tells 
us,  should  be  joy.  The  Christian  man  above  all 
others  has  a  right  to  enjoyment.  The  Creator  of 
this  glorious  world  ;  the  Maker  of  all  things  in  it 
beautiful  and  fair ;  the  Author  of  that  wondrous 
volume  of  truth  which  science  is  opening  to  us  ;  the 
Composer  of  those  infinite  harmonies  which  music 
suggests;  the  Artist  of  that  inexhaustible  realm  of 
beauty  which  human  art  aims  to  reproduce ;  the 
Source  of  those  unfathomable  depths  of  sweet  sym- 
pathy which  human  friendship  and  love  reveal  :  — 
this  Infinite  Author  of  all  good  the  Christian  knows 


SOCIOLOGICAL  217 

as  his  Father  and  his  Friend.  Knowing  himself 
to  be  the  child  of  such  a  Father,  he  will  be  eager 
to  take  up  his  inheritance.  He  will  not  despise 
the  joys  of  sense  and  flesh.  For  these  are  God- 
given  and  divinely  ordained.  As  Browning  has 
taught  us  so  grandly,  he  will  see  that 

"All  good  things  are  ours, 
Nor  soul  helps  flesh  more  now  than  flesh  helps  soul." 

Like  him  he  will  see  his  ideal  in  the  man  who 

"Gathers  earth's  whole  good  into  his  arms." 

With  him  he  will  exclaim, 

"  How  good  is  man's  life,  the  mere  living,  how  fit  to  employ 
All  the  heart  and  the  soul  and  the  senses  forever  in  joy." 

A  healthy,  hearty,  grateful  enjoyment  of  this  sen- 
suous nature  God  has  given  us  follows  directly 
from  the  fatherhood  of  God,  which  is  the  first 
article  of  Christian  faith. 

The  church  has  sometimes  forgotten  this. 
Shocked  by  the  fearful  evils  which  spring  from 
excess  and  perversion  of  sensuous  enjoyment,  the 
church  has  too  frequently  been  afraid  of  sensuous 
pleasure.  It  has  sometimes  held  up  as  its  ideal  a 
gloomy  asceticism,  a  joyless  sanctimoniousness ; 
and  seemed  to  demand  the  crucifixion  of  these 
impulses  and  instincts  that  beat  so  wildly  in 
the    hearts   and    flow    so    swiftly     in     the    veins 


2l8  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

of  strong-limbed  boys  and  light-hearted  girls. 
Terrible  has  been  the  penalty  wherever  that  blun- 
der has  been  made.  It  has  doomed  thousands  of 
lovely  young  women,  without  as  well  as  within 
convent  walls,  to  lives  of  morbid  introspection  and 
stolid  self-repression.  It  has  driven  tens  of  thou- 
sands of  our  strongest  and  noblest  young  men  to 
dissipation  and  destruction.  It  has  given  over 
multitudes  of  churches  to  stagnation  and  anility. 
And  all  this  has  been  done  in  the  name  of  Him 
who  came  eating  and  drinking ;  who  was  present 
and  participating  at  festivities  and  feasts  ;  suffi- 
ciently free  and  joyous  in  his  mode  of  life  to  give 
the  pretext  of  truth  which  every  false  charge  must 
have  behind  it,  which  made  it  possible  for  his 
enemies  to  call  him  a  glutton  and  a  wine-bibber. 
As  followers  of  Christ,  no  less  than  as  children 
of  the  Father,  we  must  recognize  the  divineness 
of  the  body ;  the  sacredness  of  even  sensuous 
delights. 

The  mind  too,  from  the  Christian  point  of  view, 
is  divine.  And  all  that  ministers  to  our  love  of 
truth  ;  all  that  feeds  our  hunger  for  beauty  of  form 
and  harmony  of  sound;  all  the  objects  at  which 
education  aims,  must  be  dear  to  the  Christian. 
For  they  are  all  tokens  of  the  Father's  love  to  his 
children  ;   they  are  all    means   by  which  we  may 


SOCIOLOGICAL  219 

grow  into  his  likeness,  and  enter  into  his  thoughts 
and  purposes.  Social  institutions  ;  the  home,  the 
school,  the  library,  the  town,  the  state,  the  nation, 
the  farm,  the  factory,  the  counting-house;  the  club, 
the  social  circle  ;  all  are  ways  in  which  the  Spirit 
of  God  is  moulding  and  inspiring  the  life  of  man  ; 
and  in  which  it  is  man's  privilege  to  find  healthful 
and  rational  delight. 

In  a  civilized  and  select  community,  composed 
chiefly  of  well-to-do  persons,  this  side  of  life  takes 
care  of  itself,  and  does  not  need  emphasis.  But 
in  dealing  with  uncivilized  races,  as  the  American 
Indians  ;  or  with  races  just  emancipated  from 
bondage,  like  the  negro  in  America ;  or  with 
classes  who  have  lapsed  from  decency  and  self- 
respect  like  the  inhabitants  of  the  neglected 
quarters  of  our  large  cities,  the  first  and  the 
only  effective  steps  toward  their  moral  and  social 
improvement  are  the  inculcation  of  a  desire  to 
hold  property ;  the  capacity  for  steady  industry  ; 
an  interest  in  good  pictures  and  good  music  and 
good  books ;  a  regard  for  personal  comfort  and 
personal  cleanliness. 

The  social  settlement  and  the  industrial  school, 
which  carries  the  substance  of  civilization,  rather 
than  the  mission  which  carries  the  form  of  evan- 
gelization, is  the  effective  agency  for  the  redemp- 


220  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

tion  of  these  classes.  Evangelization  without  the 
rudiments  of  education,  and  discipline  in  simple 
industry,  healthful  living,  and  wholesome  enjoy- 
ment, is  as  useless  as  the  casting  of  seed  upon  un- 
ploughed  land.  Here  and  there  a  single  seed  may 
take  root  and  spring  up.  But  the  harvest  will  be 
insignificant  in  comparison  with  that  yielded  by 
the  more  thorough  and  rational  method.  We  shall 
never  succeed  in  abolishing  the  saloon,  the  gam- 
bling-room and  the  brothel,  until  we  provide  in  other 
ways  the  comfort,  amusement,  and  good-fellowship 
which  many  who  frequent  these  places  do  not  now 
find  elsewhere. 

Wholesome,  healthful,  rational  enjoyment  is  the 
foundation  of  civilization  and  Christianity  alike. 
If  we  do  not  realize  it  more  clearly,  it  is  because 
in  the  circles  in  which  we  move  it  is  as  common  as 
the  atmosphere  we  breathe.  Or  if  it  be  wanting 
in  individual  cases,  the  absence  of  it  is  instinc- 
tively and  sedulously  concealed.  The  effort  to 
reach  those  who  lack  this  rational  enjoyment  is 
necessary  to  convince  us  how  essential  it  is  to 
ourselves. 

This  easy-going  optimism,  though  an  essential 
element  in  the  spiritual  life,  is  by  no  means  the 
whole  of  it.  God  is  our  Father :  and  that  thought 
makes   us   glad.     God    is    equally   the    Father   of 


SOCIOLOGICAL  221 

all  ;  even  of  the  wretched  and  the  wicked  ;  and 
the  thought  that  they  know  so  little  of  his  good- 
ness, and  have  entered  so  little  into  their  inheri- 
tance, should  make  us  sad.  The  enjoyment  of 
God's  good  gifts  is,  indeed,  our  rightful  privilege 
as  his  children.  All  that  is  true  ;  and  yet  in 
practical  life  this  truth  must  be  supplemented 
by  a  deeper  truth,  and  be  modified  by  a  higher 
law. 

That  deeper  truth  is  the  existence  of  evil ; 
and  that  higher  law  is  the  law  of  improvement 
through  service  and  redemption  by  sacrifice. 
Highly  as  he  knew  how  to  prize  the  world's 
good  things,  our  Lord  declares  that  a  man's  life 
consisteth  not  in  the  abundance  of  goods  that 
he  possesseth.  The  same  poet  who  has  already 
sung  for  us  the  praises  of  the  sensuous  life  also 
writes  : 

"  Poor  vaunt  of  life  indeed 
Were  man  bat  formed  to  feed 
On  joy,  to  solely  seek  and  find  and  feast; 
Such  feasting  ended  then 
As  sure  an  end  to  men. 

Irks    care    the    crop-full    bird?      Frets    doubt   the    maw- 
crammed  beast? 

"  Rejoice,  we  are  allied 
To  that  which  doth  provide 
And  not  partake,  effect  and  not  receive! 


222  SOCIAL    THEOLOGY 

A  spark  disturbs  our  clod  : 

Nearer  we  hold  of  God 

Who  gives,  than  of  his  tribes  that  take,  I  must  believe. 

"  Then  welcome  each  rebuff 
That  turns  earth's  smoothness  rough. 
Each  sting  that  bids  nor  sit  nor  stand,  but  go! 
Be  our  joys  three  parts  pain  ! 
Strive  and  hold  cheap  the  strain ; 
Learn,  nor  account  the  pang ;  dare,  never  grudge  the  throe." 

Service  not  less  than  enjoyment  is  our  privi- 
lege. As  Carlyle  has  taught  us  with  such  empha- 
sis, "  Work  is  worship.  All  true  work  is  relig- 
ion. Older  than  all  preached  gospels  was  this 
un preached,  inarticulate,  but  ineradicable,  forever- 
enduring  gospel :  Work,  and  therein  have  well- 
being.  All  true  work  is  sacred  ;  in  all  true  work, 
were  it  but  true  hand  labour,  there  is  something 
of  divineness."  "Two  men  I  honour,  and  no 
third.  First,  the  toilworn  craftsman  that  with 
earth-made  implement  laboriously  conquers  the 
earth,  and  makes  her  man's.  A  second  man  I 
honour,  and  still  more  highly  :  him  who  is  seen 
toiling  for  the  spiritually  indispensable  ;  not  daily 
bread,  but  the  bread  of  life.  If  the  poor  and 
humble  toil  that  we  have  food,  must  not  the 
high  and  glorious  toil  for  him  in  return,  that 
he  have  light,  have  guidance,  freedom,  immor- 
tality?—  These  two,  in  all  their  degrees,   I  hon- 


SOCIOLOGICAL  223 

our ;  all  else  is  chaff  and  dust,  which  let  the 
wind  blow  whither  it  listeth." 

The  best  things  in  the  world  do  not  come  to 
us  ready-made.  God  has  given  us  the  material 
conditions  of  a  blessed  life.  In  Christ  we  have 
the  pattern  and  principle  of  such  a  life.  Yet 
the  actual  work  of  making  life  noble  and  beau- 
tiful and  enjoyable  he  has  left  for  ourselves. 
Truth  must  be  searched  for  with  patient  toil. 
Beauty  must  be  wrought  out  with  painstaking 
devotion.  Food  and  raiment  must  be  wrested 
from  the  furrow  and  woven  in  the  loom.  And 
all  our  social  and  political  institutions  must  be 
fought  for  on  the  field  of  battle,  defended  in  the 
forum,  and  vindicated  in  the  courts.  Even  our 
religious  faiths  must  be  thought  out  anew  in 
the  soul-conflicts  of  each  generation,  or  they 
become  mere  forms  of  words,  devoid  of  life  and 
power.  As  Emerson  says,  "  A  thing  uttered  in 
words  is  not  therefore  affirmed.  It  must  affirm 
itself,  or  no  form  of  logic  or  of  oath  can  give  it 
evidence." 

This  readiness  and  capacity  for  service  is  the 
fundamental  test  of  a  man's  social  worth  ;  and 
consequently  the  best  evidence  of  his  Christianity. 
If  we  could  have  but  one  test  of  a  man's  Chris- 
tianity ;  if  there  were  but  one  question  which  we 


224-  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

could  put  to  him,  I  suppose  that  question  would 
be  this  :  "  Art  thou  intent  on  doing  with  thy  might 
something  which  God  has  given  thee  to  do,  to 
make  this  world  where  he  has  placed  thee  a  health- 
ier, happier,  fairer,  holier  place  ?  "  He  whose  life 
is  a  consistent  affirmative  answer  to  that  question 
is  an  accepted  son  of  the  Father,  whatever  be 
the  intellectual  process  by  which  that  sonship  has 
been  attained.  This  is  by  no  means  equivalent 
to  the  assertion  that  faith  is  non-essential,  or  that 
church-connection  is  unnecessary,  or  that  creeds 
are  superfluous  ;  any  more  than  our  Lord's  para- 
ble of  the  two  sons  is  an  argument  for  disrespect 
to  parents. 

And  service  involves  sacrifice.  The  world  is 
not  merely  incomplete,  and  in  need  of  service. 
It  is  deformed  and  corrupted  by  sin,  and  needs 
redemption.  And  a  large  part  of  one's  work  for 
the  world  has  to  be  devoted,  not  to  the  upbuilding 
of  the  right,  but  to  the  overthrow  of  wrong  ;  not 
to  the  cultivation  of  virtue,  but  to  the  destruc- 
tion of  vice  ;  not  to  the  promotion  of  good, 
but  to  the  eradication  of  evil ;  not  to  the  culti- 
vation of  health,  but  to  the  healing  of  disease. 
Here  comes  in  the  call  for  sacrifice.  The 
Christian,  like  his  Lord,  must  become  a  bearer  of 
the  sins  and  iniquities  of  the  world  ;  that  through 


SOCIOLOGICAL  225 

his  sufferings  the  sorrows  of  the  world  may  be 
lightened,  its  darkness  dissipated,  its  sins  atoned 
for  and  its  destruction  stayed. 

Make  any  serious  effort  to  improve  the  condi- 
tion and  character  of  men,  and  you  are  brought 
face  to  face  with  this  hydra-headed  monster  sin. 
Try  to  relieve  poverty  in  a  single  family,  and 
you  find  the  extortionate  and  irresponsible  land- 
lord of  the  unsanitary  tenement,  the  hard-hearted 
saloon-keeper,  the  conscienceless  "  sweater,"  stand- 
ing ready  to  snatch  every  penny  of  your  charity 
from  the  hands  of  those  you  try  to  help.  And 
if  you  evade  these  foes,  then  your  gift  falls  a 
prey  to  the  more  terrible  enemy  of  the  poor  man's 
own  shiftlessness  and  lack  of  self-respect ;  and  his 
poor  wife's  inability  to  cook  a  wholesome  and  eco- 
nomical meal,  or  to  spend  either  his  earnings  or 
your  gift  to  advantage.  Poverty,  intemperance, 
extortion,  irresponsible  use  of  wealth,  unhealthful 
and  indecent  conditions  of  life,  ignorance,  social 
ostracism,  despair,  lust,  cruelty,  laziness,  dishon- 
esty, untruthfulness,  are  so  many  different  mani- 
festations of  what  ethics  regards  as  perversions  of 
appetites,  interests,  and  instincts  in  themselves 
innocent  ;  but  which  theology  must  consider  as 
the  phases  of  the  one  deadly  and  destructive 
principle,  sin. 
Q 


226  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

Evil  and  sin  confront  us  as  fearful  facts.  They 
mar  and  pervert  this  fair  and  goodly  world  which 
God  has  made.  And  yet  they  are  not  positive 
and  enduring  forces.  Evil  is  always  a  negation 
of  good.  Wrong  is  a  perversion  of  what  might 
be  and  ought  to  be  right.  Sin  is  the  missing  of 
the  mark  of  that  ideal  excellence  at  which  we 
ought  to  aim.  The  measure  of  the  evil  of  an  act 
is  simply  the  amount  of  good  which  it  glisplaces. 
The  sin  and  wrong  and  evil  of  intemperance  or 
licentiousness  consists  not  in  the  sensuous  pleas- 
ures for  the  sake  of  which  men  practise  these 
vices.  The  terrible,  pitiful,  heartrending  evil  of 
these  vices  appears  when  we  consider  the  good 
which  they  displace  and  destroy.  Property  wasted 
and  health  impaired  ;  wretched  homes  and  bleed- 
ing hearts ;  weakened  wills  and  deadened  sensibil- 
ities ;  loveless  marriages  and  homeless  children  ; 
these  beautiful  things  so  horribly  disfigured  ;  these 
tender  ties  so  rudely  torn  asunder ;  these  sweet 
fountains  of  purity  and  love  so  foully  polluted  and 
horribly  embittered  ;  these  goods  displaced,  per- 
verted, corrupted,  and  destroyed,  measure  the  enor- 
mity and  heinousness  of  these  most  loathsome 
and  repulsive  forms  of  sin.  Sin  is  a  parasite 
which  lives  only  by  destroying  that  on  which  it 
feeds.     But  though  a  parasite,  it  is  a  mighty  one. 


SOCIOLOGICAL  227 

It  has  fastened  itself  upon  everything  good  and 
fair  in  all  this  world.  Sometimes  the  only  way 
to  destroy  it  has  been  to  destroy  the  men  on 
whom  it  has  fastened  itself.  That  is  the  way  of 
punishment,  and  vengeance,  and  revolution.  The 
better  way  to  destroy  it  is  to  identify  ourselves 
in  sympathy  and  compassion  with  those  who  bear 
the  burden  of  guilt  and  misery  which  sin  inflicts  ; 
to  let  it  fasten  itself  on  us  ;  to  suffer  with  them  ; 
to  bear  with  them  the  burden,  and  perhaps  perish 
under  its  weight.  That  is  the  way  of  sacrifice,  the 
way  of  the  cross,  the  way  of  atonement  and  re- 
demption, the  way  in  which  Christ  walked,  and  in 
which  he  bids  us  follow. 

True  self-sacrifice  is  never  for  its  own  sake  ; 
never  for  mere  show  ;  never  simply  to  mark  off 
the  Christian  from  the  world  ;  never  mere  playing 
martyr.  It  is  a  poor  pitiful  type  of  Christianity 
that  has  to  resort  to  the  exhibition  of  artificial 
and  arbitrary  impositions  and  privations  to  mark 
itself  off  from  the  world.  Self-denial  for  its  own 
sake ;  self-denial  that  is  sour  and  ascetic  ;  self- 
denial  that  despises  the  good  things  of  the  world 
and  tries  to  set  itself  above  them,  is  foolish  and 
false  and  unchristian.  Christian  self-denial  is 
always  the  surrender  of  a  lower  for  the  sake  of 
a  higher  good. 


228  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

Sacrifice  that  is  made  in  the  service  of  the  good 
and  in  conflict  with  the  evil  in  the  world ;  self- 
denial  that  is  incidental  to  a  larger  and  truer  self- 
realization  ;  self-denial  which  values  at  their  true 
worth  all  the  world's  delights,  and  still  can  do 
without  them  for  the  sake  of  the  larger  delight 
of  others  and  the  deeper  joy  of  sympathy  and 
love  ;  self-denial  that  declines  personal  indulgence 
as  cheerfully  and  eagerly  and  unpretentiously  as 
an  athlete  throws  off  his  coat  to  run  a  race,  when 
there  are  human  needs  to  be  served  or  human 
wrongs  to  be  endured  and  righted  ;  this  is  heroic, 
Christian,  divine. 

Vicarious  suffering  is  not  an  arbitrary  contriv- 
ance by  which  Christ  bought  a  formal  pardon  for 
the  world.  It  is  a  universal  law,  of  which  the 
cross  of  Christ  is  the  eternal  symbol.  It  is  the 
price  some  one  must  pay  for  every  step  of  progress 
and  every  conquest  over  evil  the  world  shall  ever 
gain. 

The  redemption  of  the  world  means  the  preva- 
lence of  a  healthy,  happy,  holy,  human  life.  Even 
in  normal  or  sinless  conditions,  a  large  part  of  the 
highest  enjoyment  would  be  found  in  mutual  ser- 
vice, but  the  service  would  be  itself  a  pleasure, 
and  would  involve  no  costly  sacrifice.  The  pres- 
ence of  sin  and  moral   evil   compels   us   to   carry 


SOCIOLOGICAL  229 

our  service  to  the  point  of  sacrifice.  And  yet 
even  out  of  this  sacrifice  comes  the  deepest  joy. 
"There  shall  be  joy  in  heaven  over  one  sinner 
that  repenteth,  more  than  over  ninety  and  nine 
righteous  persons,  which  need  no  repentance." 

The  redemption  of  the  world,  like  the  salvation 
of  the  individual,  is  a  gradual  process.  The  indi- 
vidual is  saved  the  moment  he  renounces  sin  and 
surrenders  to  the  will  of  God.  And  yet  this  act  of 
his  central  will  and  intelligence  does  not  carry 
with  it  all  at  once  the  complete  conformity  of 
every  act  to  the  new  principle. 

The  world  has  been  redeemed  from  the  moment 
when  Christ  came  into  it ;  from  the  moment  when 
love  was  consciously  accepted  as  the  true  law  of 
human  life.  This  Christian  principle  of  loving 
service  and  willing  self-sacrifice  for  the  glory  of 
God  and  the  good  of  men  is  the  central  principle 
of  the  clearest  thinking  and  most  earnest  willing 
in  the  world  to-day.  It  is  the  spiritual  principle 
of  the  modern  world.  It  is  the  secret  of  whatever 
of  constancy  and  courage  and  hope  and  high  en- 
deavour animates  the  representative  modern  man. 
To  be  sure,  it  is  not  always  explicitly  conscious  of 
the  historic  source  of  its  inspiration  ;  it  is  not 
always  in  intellectual  sympathy  with  the  formulas 
in  which  the  Christian  tradition  is  expressed.     But 


23O  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

under  various  names,  —  altruism,  utilitarianism, 
evolution,  science,  art,  law,  public  spirit,  philan- 
thropy, reform,  progress,  idealism, — the  character 
we  all  admire  and,  under  one  name  or  another, 
confess  as  our  ideal,  is  not  the  hard,  narrow,  petty 
self-seeking  of  the  natural  man  ;  but  the  broad, 
sympathetic,  generous  unselfishness  which  is  the 
essence  of  Christ's  Gospel  and  the  principle  of  the 
kingdom  which  he  came  to  found. 

The  presence  of  this  Spirit  of  love  as  the  accepted 
and  accredited  ideal  of  conduct  and  character  is 
itself  the  proof  that  the  world  has  been  redeemed. 
It  is  the  promise  and  potency  of  its  complete 
redemption.  The  Spirit  must  do  his  quiet, 
silent  work  for  many  centuries  to  come  before 
even  present  standards  of  conduct  will  be  univer- 
sally accepted.  And  as  each  form  of  existing  evil 
is  overcome,  new  spheres  of  duty,  richer  experi- 
ences of  love,  larger  spheres  of  truth,  deeper 
springs  of  life,  will  be  disclosed  "  in  the  perpetual 
progress  of  the  species  towards  a  point  of  unattain- 
able perfection." 

A  little  leaven  leaveneth  the  whole  lump.  The 
lump  that  has  the  leaven  in  it  is  potentially  leav- 
ened ;  although  there  may  be  large  portions  of  the 
mass  which  the  leaven  has  not  yet  reached.  The 
world  already  has  within  it  the  principle  which  is 


SOCIOLOGICAL  23  I 

destined  to  make  it  a  heaven.  Multitudes  of  men 
and  women  have  this  principle  in  their  hearts  as 
the  conscious  Spirit  of  their  lives.  Multitudes 
more  have  caught  the  Spirit  of  unselfish  living 
from  others,  without  recognizing  its  historic  origin, 
and  without  being  able  to  give  conscious  expres- 
sion to  the  principle  which  really  rules  their  con- 
duct and  is  moulding  their  character.  Multitudes 
more  still  sit  in  darkness,  or  stand  in  deliberate 
rebellion  ;  unable  or  unwilling  to  welcome  the  love 
that  lights  the  world. 

*  And  yet  the  Spirit's  presence  in  so  many  hearts 
to-day,  the  steady  and  increasing  conquest  of  the 
Christ,  is  the  certain  prophecy  that  every  nation 
and  every  tribe  at  no  distant  day  shall  hear  the 
message  of  the  Christian  missionary ;  feel  the 
healing  touch  of  the  Christian  physician  ;  respond 
to  the  voice  of  the  Christian  teacher ;  and  enjoy 
the  blessings  of  liberty  and  light  and  law  and  love 
which  Christian  civilization,  though  unfortunately 
it  does  not  send  these  forces  as  its  advance  guard, 
ultimately  carries  in  its  train. 

Doubtless  the  law  of  natural  selection  has  still 
some  seemingly  severe  work  to  do  with  the 
inferior  races.  It  may  be  that  the  only  differ- 
ence between  Christian  and  pagan  civilization,  in 
their  approach  to  these  races,   will  be  the  substi- 


232  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

tution  of  a  slower  and  gentler  for  a  sudden  and 
violent  extermination.  Still,  the  fact  that  the 
higher  displaces  the  lower,  and  survival  turns  on 
fitness,  indicates  a  profound  beneficence  at  the 
heart  of  even  this  seeming  cruelty.  With  races, 
as  with  individuals,  the  dealings  of  God  are  on  so 
vast  a  scale  that  the  side  turned  toward  us  often 
seems  to  be  one  of  unmitigated  harshness  and 
severity.  Perpetuated  physical  inferiority  would 
not  tend  to  permanent  spiritual  superiority.  At 
all  events  it  is  our  duty  to  bring  to  these  races 
the  best  we  have  to  offer,  in  material  and  mental 
and  social  and  spiritual  things ;  and  then,  if  they 
are  able  to  endure  the  light,  we  shall  have  con- 
ferred the  highest  blessing  in  our  power ;  and  if 
they  are  not,  we  must  accept  their  elimination  just 
as  we  do  that  of  the  incorrigible  individual,  as 
a  sad  but  necessary  stage  of  the  progress  of 
mankind  and  the  redemption  of  the  world. 


CHAPTER   IX 

ABSTRACTION    AND    AGGREGATION THE    ORGANIZA- 
TION   OF    THE    KINGDOM 

In  the  last  chapter  we  saw  that  egoism,  or  the 
selfish  enjoyment  of  the  world,  though  good  as  far 
as  it  goes,  is  a  very  imperfect  good,  and  requires 
the  addition  of  altruism,  or  the  service  of  others, 
and  even  sacrifice  for  the  sake  of  such  service,  in 
order  to  render  it  in  any  degree  a  tolerable  princi- 
ple of  life.  Yet  altruism  is  itself  incomplete  and 
unsatisfying.  Let  us  examine  briefly  its  short- 
comings. Here  is  a  man  pouring  out  his  life  in 
charity  and  philanthropy ;  organizing  right  and 
overthrowing  wrong ;  preaching  sanitation  and 
temperance  and  justice,  and  denouncing  the  un- 
healthy tenement,  the  saloon,  and  the  sweater ; 
giving  his  days  and  nights  to  toil  and  strife  and 
agitation,  to  feed  the  hungry,  stay  the  oppressor, 
and  rouse  the  indifferent.  In  a  word,  he  is  doing 
with  all  his  might  that  work  of  reform  and  re- 
demption which  Jesus  inaugurated,  and  on  which 
the   welfare   of  society   depends.     And  yet  every 

233 


234  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

one  who  has  undertaken  in  any  earnest  way  to  do 
these  things  knows  what  a  terrible  sense  of  disap- 
pointment and  discouragement  and  despair  comes 
over  one  when  he  stops  to  think  how  mighty  all 
these  forces  of  evil  are.  We  find  ourselves  so 
feeble  and  so  frail ;  our  puny  efforts  seem  so  vain  ; 
our  blunders  are  so  costly ;  our  negligence  is  so 
criminal.  No  man  ever  worked  hard  for  a  good 
cause  or  fought  valiantly  against  an  intrenched 
abuse  without  at  times  having  this  feeling  of 
depression  and  self-distrust  come  over  him  and 
cast  him  down.  This  task  of  setting  the  world 
right  is  too  vast  for  our  puny  hands,  and  the  futil- 
ity of  our  attempts  to  accomplish  the  impossible 
forces  itself  in  upon  our  weary  souls  until  we  are 
ready  to  exclaim  with  Elijah,  as  he  sat  under  the 
juniper  tree,  "It  is  enough;  now,  O  Lord,  take 
away  my  life ;  for  I  am  not  better  than  my 
fathers." 

Then  we  need  the  assurance  that  we  are  not 
alone  ;  that  the  battle  we  are  fighting  is  not  con- 
fined to  the  brief  time  and  narrow  space  we  oc- 
cupy ;  but  that  it  is  a  single  incident  in  a  grand 
campaign,  and  that  we  are  members  of  one  great 
whole,  and  our  work  is  part  of  one  great  compre- 
hensive plan.  Then  we  need  to  know  that  we 
belong  to  God  ;  that  he  is  with  us  ;  and  that  in  his 


SOCIOLOGICAL  235 

name  we  shall  ultimately  conquer.  Such  an  assur- 
ance most  religious  persons  gain  through  pious 
feeling.  To  others  it  must  come  as  a  clear  in- 
sight, if  it  is  to  come  at  all.  They  ask  the  question 
whether  there  is  any  such  unity  in  the  spiritual 
world  ?  They  insist  on  seeing  life  as  a  whole,  or 
else  they  refuse  to  regard  it  as  divine. 

This  question  whether  there  be  any  spiritual 
unity  in  the  universe,  through  which  our  lives  may 
become  unified ;  any  great  and  glorious  whole,  of 
which  our  lives  may  form  noble  and  worthy  mem- 
bers, is  the  fundamental  problem  of  religion.  The 
briefest  answer  to  it  would  be  to  refer  back  to  the 
Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  say  that 
the  true  unity  of  life  is  found  in  union  with  the 
living  God  ;  to  point  out  that  our  weakness  and 
isolation  is  due  to  sin  ;  that  by  repentance  and 
faith  and  grace  we  may  escape,  and  be  born  anew, 
and  grow  into  oneness  with  the  life  of  God.  Such 
an  answer,  however,  would  be  a  mere  summary  of 
what  has  gone  before.  It  would  convince  only 
those  who  have  been  convinced  already. 

Instead  of  offering  this  too  easy  answer,  it  will 
be  more  profitable  to  take  up  in  this  new  form  the 
whole  spiritual  problem  afresh,  and  see  whether, 
in  an  attempt  to  find  an  answer  to  this  practical 
problem  of   the  spiritual  life,  we  reach  the   same 


236  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

conclusion  that  we  have  already  reached  from  the 
speculative  side.  Plato  in  the  Republic  teaches  us 
that  the  problem  of  individual  morality  is  best 
solved  by  studying  the  larger  features  of  the  state. 
In  like  manner  that  emotional  and  spiritual  unity, 
which  we  crave  as  the  satisfactory  solution  of  our 
individual  lives,  is  most  readily  and  surely  found  in 
the  practical  unity  of  organic  social  lite. 

Let  us  then,  in  conclusion,  consider  the  funda- 
mental question  of  all  practical  philosophy  :  What 
is  true  unity  ?  and  how  may  it  be  gained  ? 

There  are  three  ways  in  which  you  may  try  to 
reduce  a  mass  of  material  to  unity  and  consistency : 
the  way  of  abstraction  ;  the  way  of  aggregation ; 
and  the  way  of  organization. 

The  way  of  abstraction  eliminates  all  differ- 
ences, strips  off  all  definiteness  and  determination, 
until  there  remains  the  empty  form  of  pure  being 
which,  as  Hegel  tells  us,  is  one  and  the  same  as 
nothing. 

Stated  in  this  plain  formula,  it  does  not  seem  as 
though  such  an  unsubstantial  ghost  could  lead  any 
one  astray  ;  much  less  do  positive  harm.  Yet  this 
pale,  colourless  nonentity  of  an  abstract  unity,  hol- 
low and  unreal  as  it  appears  in  its  naked  metaphys- 
ical essence,  arrayed  in  the  robes  of  ethics,  sociol- 
ogy, theology,  education,  has  managed  to  deceive 


SOCIOLOGICAL  237 

some  of  the  very  elect ;  and  in  the  privations  of  as- 
cetics, the  mutilations  of  monastics,  the  monotonous 
tautology  of  mystics,  the  unsubstantial  schemes  of 
socialists,  the  dreary  curricula  of  pedants,  has 
proved  its  ghostly  potency  to  make  the  lives  of 
men  and  women  who  cherish  it  as  hollow  and 
empty  and  shrivelled  and  unreal  as  itself. 

The  attempt  to  unify  life  by  abstraction  leads 
to  asceticism.  It  is  desire,  appetite,  passion, 
that  leads  us  astray.  Therefore  repress  desire ; 
eradicate  appetite  ;  stifle  passion,  and  the  difficulty 
will  be  removed.  Erect  self-sacrifice  into  an  end  ; 
self-denial  into  a  virtue  ;  self-mortification  into  a 
duty,  and  apparently  the  problem  of  the  moral  life 
will  be  solved. 

So  says  asceticism  ;  whether  in  the  filthy  rags  of 
the  Cynic  ;  the  plain  garb  of  the  Stoic  ;  the  coarse 
frock  of  the  Franciscan  ;  or  the  sombre  cloak  of 
the  Puritan.  By  abstracting  all  principles  of  dif- 
ference, you  seem  to  get  unity  ;  by  excluding  all 
that  can  make  discord,  you  think  to  secure  har- 
mony ;  by  eliminating  the  elements  of  strife,  you 
hope  to  establish  peace. 

Alas !  Not  so  simple  is  the  solution  of  our 
moral  struggles.  In  abstracting  difference,  you 
take  away  the  very  stuff  that  unity  is  made  of.  In 
excluding  discord,  you  strike  out  the  very  notes  of 


238  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

which  all  harmony  must  be  composed.  In  elimi- 
nating the  possibility  of  strife,  you  remove  the 
very  forces  which  must  be  the  contracting  parties 
to  any  peace  that  is  worthy  to  endure. 

Heraclitus  was  right.  War  is  the  father  of  all 
things.  It  is  out  of  difference  that  unity  is 
formed  ;  out  of  discord  that  harmony  is  composed ; 
out  of  strife  that  peace  is  won.  And  the  device  of 
the  ascetic  is  a  feeble  evasion  of  the  difficulty ;  a 
cowardly  desertion  of  the  battle-field.  To  conquer 
by  running  away  from  the  enemy  is  not  victory: 
and  the  conceit  of  the  Cynic,  the  pride  of  the 
Stoic,  are  but  pitiful  counterfeits  of  the  true  glory 
of  the  moral  conqueror.  The  cheap  virtue  that 
comes  of  self-contraction ;  the  empty  duty  that 
consists  in  formal  self-assertion  ;  the  hollow  pride 
that  is  born  of  self-abnegation,  —  these  are  the 
bitter,  sour,  disappointing  fruits  of  the  futile  effort 
to  unify  life  by  abstracting  the  very  substance  of 
which  life  is  made.  For  it  shrivels  life  to  the 
narrow  dimensions  of  an  empty  chamber  within  a 
hard  and  hollow  shell. 

The  method  of  abstraction  in  sociology  gives 
us  socialism.  It  has  much  to  say  of  organization, 
and  deals  largely  in  organic  analogies.  But  it  is 
the  organization  of  imaginary  rather  than  of 
real  men  and  women.      It  is   organization    of  the 


SOCIOLOGICAL  239 

tyrannical  military  type,  rather  than  the  organiza- 
tion of  free  spontaneous  life.  It  deals  with  fancies 
rather  than  with  facts.  Like  Wharton,  in  Mrs. 
Ward's  Marcella,  the  socialist  of  this  type  is  false 
to  what  is,  in  fancied  fidelity  to  what  ought  to 
be.  This  withdrawal  from  the  actual  for  the  sake 
of  an  ideal  is  the  very  essence  of  abstraction, 
whether  in  the  asceticism  of  the  moralist,  the 
unpracticalness  of  the  socialist,  or  the  other- 
worldliness  of  the  religionist.  The  attempt  to 
give  unity  to  society  by  treating  men  and  women 
as  abstractions,  rather  than  as  the  actual  beings 
that  they  are,  is  the  characteristic  mark  of  social- 
ism from  Plato  to  the  present  day. 

Ignore  the  actual  facts  of  our  inconsistent 
human  nature  ;  assume  that  men  and  women  are 
what  they  ought  to  be,  instead  of  reckoning  with 
them  as  they  are  ;  eliminate  from  them  all  indi- 
viduality and  independence,  and  reduce  them  to 
the  dead  level  of  so  many  commodity  producers 
and  happiness  consumers ;  and  then  it  is  the 
easiest  thing  in  the  world  to  make  them  fit  ex- 
actly into  the  niches  you  have  cut  out  for  them 
in  your  abstract  socialistic  scheme.  This  abstract 
man  who  loves  only  the  abstract  woman  will  be 
perfectly  content  with  the  community  of  wives 
in   Plato's   Republic.      The  artist  who  is  devoted 


24O  SOCIAL  THEOLOdY 

to  art  in  general  will  be  perfectly  satisfied  to  have 
his  career  marked  out  for  him  by  a  central  em- 
ployment bureau.  And  so  on  through  all  the 
range  of  definite  concrete  affections,  interests, 
and  enthusiasms  which  make  up  the  complex  life 
of  man.  The  only  trouble  is  that  these  men  who 
are  equally  in  love  with  everybody,  and  equally 
fitted  for  anything,  really  love  nobody,  and  are 
absolutely  good  for  nothing.  Hegel's  saying  that 
being  and  not  being  are  the  same,  translated  into 
these  social  terms,  gives  the  maxim  that  the  love 
of  everybody  is  the  same  thing  as  the  love  of 
nobody ;  and  being  good  for  anything  is  equiva- 
lent to  being  good  for  nothing.  For  these 
abstract,  nobody-loving,  good-for-nothing  beings, 
socialism  would  provide  an  ideal  paradise.  Actual 
men  and  women  of  flesh  and  blood,  however,  pre- 
fer to  find  their  universal  in  the  individual,  and 
through  the  straitened  gate  of  a  particular  af- 
fection, and  the  narrow  way  of  a  definite  devo- 
tion, find  entrance  to  the  deeper  love  and  the 
larger  life. 

Abstract  unity  in  religion  presents  itself  as 
other-worldliness.  "  Good  bye,  proud  world,  we're 
going  home,"  is  its  monotonous  refrain.  Check 
the  wild  beating  of  your  natural  heart ;  curb 
the  eager  ambitions  of  your  carnal  mind  ;  accept 


SOCIOLOGICAL  24 1 

your  work  as  a  stern  necessity  ;  assume  family 
and  social  obligations  as  a  serious  duty ;  shun 
pleasure  as  a  deadly  snare  ;  and  thus  by  ab- 
stracting from  life  all  its  normal  interests,  its 
healthy  enthusiasms  and  its  natural  charms, 
you  get  a  thin,  pale,  morbid,  melancholy  residuum 
of  a  religion  whose  only  claim  to  be  called  spirit- 
ual is  that  it  is  unnatural,  and  whose  only  hope 
of  heaven  is  its  manifest  unfitness  for  earth. 
The  reign  of  the  abstract  in  religion,  however,  is 
happily  at  an  end,  except  in  individuals  left  over 
from  past  generations,  and  in  rural  regions  which 
remain  unreached  by  the  dominant  influences  of 
the  hour. 

The  way  of  aggregation  has  had  numerous  and 
able  representatives  from  Democritus  to  John 
Stuart  Mill.  The  hard-headed  adherents  of  this 
materialistic  creed  see  through  the  transparent 
emptiness  of  your  pale  abstractions,  and  will  have 
none  of  them.  Particulars  are  to  them  the  ulti- 
mate and  sole  realities,  and  the  only  unity  they 
know  is  the  artificial  and  fictitious  unity  which  we 
give  to  them  by  adding  and  grouping  these  par- 
ticulars   together. 

This  type  of  unity  stated  in  terms  of  pure 
metaphysics  seems  innocent  and  harmless  enough. 
Yet  carried  over  into  ethics  it  means  hedonism  ; 


242  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

in  economics  and  sociology  it  means  laissez  fairc ; 
in  theology  it  means  agnosticism  ;  in  the  intellec- 
tual life  it  means  chaos  and  despair.  This  type 
of  unity  has  none  of  the  winsomeness  and  charm 
of  the  abstract  unity.  Cold,  hard,  soulless,  aloof ; 
its  weapons  are  mathematics  and  formal  logic,  and 
its  conquests  are  among  men  and  women  of  lofty 
but  unimaginative  minds  ;  of  sincere  but  unemo- 
tional hearts. 

The  attempt  to  unify  life  by  aggregation  gives 
hedonism.  Reduce  all  the  rich  diversity  of  con- 
crete interests,  enthusiasms,  and  affections  to  the 
monotonous,  flat,  insipid,  common  form  of  pleas- 
ure ;  then  put  your  precious  pleasures  in  the  scales 
and  weigh  them ;  lay  them  on  the  table  and  meas- 
ure their  length  and  breadth  (hedonists  generally 
forget  to  mention  depth,  because  there  is  no  depth 
to  pleasure  thus  conceived) ;  then  pile  up  your 
weighed  and  measured  pleasures  into  a  heap  in 
your  own  memory  and  imagination  (pleasures  are 
so  fleeting  that  they  cannot  be  held  together  long 
enough  to  constitute  a  real  heap) ;  then  call  that 
man  happiest  whose  memory  retains  the  biggest 
heap  of  pleasures  that  he  has  enjoyed,  and  you 
have  the  only  consistent  moral  unity  which  hedon- 
ism can  impart  to  life.  To  be  sure,  hedonists  since 
John  Stuart  Mill   have  sought,  in  addition  to  the 


SOCIOLOGICAL  243 

crude  weighing  and  measuring  of  Hobbes  and 
Bentham,  to  introduce  tests  of  quality,  and,  by 
strange  tricks  of  logical  jugglery,  to  stretch  pleas- 
ure beyond  the  sensibilities  of  the  individual,  to 
whom  alone  it  strictly  can  belong,  until  it  is  spread 
out  in  perilously  attenuated  form  to  cover  the 
whole  human  race.  But  these  are  considerations 
foreign  to  the  fundamental  principle  of  hedonism. 
You  can  greatly  improve  a  knife  which  has  a  dull 
blade  and  a  broken  handle  by  putting  in  a  new 
blade  and  a  new  handle,  but  you  abandon  your  old 
knife  in  the  process.  And  so  when  you  prefer  a 
less  pleasure  to  a  greater  because  it  is  higher,  you 
have  introduced  a  standard  higher  than  pleasure, 
by  which  pleasure  itself  is  judged.  And  when  you 
seek  the  pleasure  of  others  you  are  introducing  a 
motive  which  derives  its  dynamic  power,  not  from 
a  present  feeling  in  your  body,  which  in  the  last 
analysis  pleasure  must  be,  but  from  an  idea  before 
your  mind,  which  is  a  very  different  thing  from 
pleasure.  Into  the  subtle  refinements  by  which 
modern  evolutionary  writers  have  tried  to  stretch 
without  breaking,  and  to  change  without  destroy- 
ing, the  conception  of  pleasure  as  the  ultimate  unit 
out  of  which  by  aggregation  the  moral  life  must 
be  built  up,  we  cannot  enter  here. 

Consistent  hedonism   makes   pleasure    the    ulti- 


244  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

mate  test  of  the  worth  of  conduct,  and  makes  the 
aggregate  of  pleasures  the  test  of  the  worth  of 
life.  And  in  doing  so  it  sacrifices  the  spiritual 
substance  of  life  to  its  sensuous  form  ;  it  inverts 
the  normal  relations  of  means  to  ends ;  it  throws 
the  noblest  aims,  the  tenderest  affections,  the  holi- 
est aspirations,  the  most  refined  tastes,  into  the  fur- 
nace ;  melts  them  all  down  into  the  crude  material, 
out  of  which,  according  to  its  theory,  they  are 
alike  composed  ;  and  then  tells  us  that  he  who  can 
show  the  largest  number  of  pieces  of  this  common 
substance  cooled  down,  gauged,  weighed,  done  up 
in  packages,  and  labelled,  is  the  happiest,  and 
therefore  the  best  of  men.  To  such  intolerable 
monotony,  to  such  insufferable  insipidity,  does 
the  materialistic  method  of  mere  mechanical  ag- 
gregation reduce  the  moral  life  of  man. 

The  attempt  to  solve  the  social  problem  by  the 
method  of  aggregation,  leads  one  into  the  indis- 
criminate and  promiscuous  helping  of  individuals 
as  they  are.  It  seeks  to  relieve  poverty,  regard- 
less of  its  cause.  It  tries  to  find  employment  for 
the  idle,  regardless  of  the  demand  for  the  product. 
It  aims  to  relieve  suffering,  without  stopping  to 
inquire  whether  the  suffering  is  beneficent  and 
disciplinary  penalty,  or  accidental  and  unavoidable 
misfortune.      It    attempts    to    make    the    greatest 


SOCIOLOGICAL  245 

number  of  individuals  well  off,  without  consider- 
ing the  well-being  of  the  society  to  which  they  are 
related.  And,  consequently,  in  adding  remedies 
this  method  multiplies  disease. 

The  utter  futility  of  attempting  to  relieve  pov- 
erty without  removing  its  causes  and  conditions  ; 
the  positive  mischief  of  helping  an  individual, 
without  at  the  same  time  helping  him  to  resume 
his  normal  connection  with  society,  is  everywhere 
recognized  as  the  first  principle  of  scientific 
charity.  To  disengage  the  individual  from  so- 
ciety is  as  grave  a  practical  mistake,  as  to  abstract 
society  from  the  concrete  individuals  who  com- 
pose it  is  a  serious  speculative  fallacy. 

The  aggregate  conception  in  religion  is  to-day 
everywhere  enthroned,  and  is  in  the  zenith  of  its 
power.  So  far  from  being  a  saint's  rest  for  the 
sanctified,  the  church,  according  to  this  view,  is 
to  be  the  centre  of  the  most  multifarious  activi- 
ties. It  is  to  be  a  "  workshop  rather  than  a 
cathedral."  The  cooking  and  serving  of  food ; 
the  manufacture  and  distribution  of  clothing  ;  the 
teaching  and  training  of  children  ;  the  instruction 
and  entertainment  of  young  people ;  the  provi- 
sion of  homes  for  the  homeless  and  work  for  the 
unemployed  ;  military  drill  for  the  boys  ;  benevo- 
lent circles  for  the  girls  ;  countless  committees  for 


246  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

men  and  numberless  ministrations  for  women  ;  — 
these  are  the  characteristics  of  the  typical  modern 
church.  It  is  said  that  an  applicant  for  admis- 
sion to  such  a  church,  having  some  difficulty  in 
satisfactorily  expressing  her  religious  experience, 
finally  summed  it  all  up  in  the  single  sentence, 
"  I  want  to  be  like  Martha,  cumbered  about  much 
serving,"  and  thereupon  was  admitted  to  member- 
ship at  once. 

Now  we  all  welcome  this  tendency  as  a  needed 
protest  against  the  other-worldliness  which  went 
before  it.  We  all  honour  the  institutional  churches 
which  are  springing  up  in  the  more  needy  quar- 
ters of  our  large  cities.  Just  as  in  bodily  disease, 
when  some  of  the  bodily  members  are  out  of 
order,  other  members  are  compelled  to  do  the 
work  of  the  disabled  members  in  addition  to  their 
own  ;  so  in  abnormal  social  conditions  the  church 
is  called  upon  to  do  the  work  of  several  social 
instrumentalities  in  addition  to  its  own.  All 
honour  to  the  exceptionally  located  churches  which 
are  rising  to  meet  exceptional  responsibilities  by 
special  efforts  and  enlarged  activities.  Yet  to 
erect  this  exceptional  type  of  church  into  a  stand- 
ard for  the  measurement  of  all  churches  would  be 
to  adopt  the  aggregate  rather  than  the  organic  as 
the  type  of  church  work  and  religious  life. 


SOCIOLOGICAL  247 

The  unity  that  comes  through  organization  is 
not  so  easy  to  define.  It  transcends  space  ;  almost 
annihilates  time  ;  defies  mathematics,  and  is  the 
despair  of  formal  logic.  The  whole  is  in  the  parts ; 
the  parts  are  in  the  whole.  There  is  an  instanta- 
neous response  of  each  member  to  the  conditions 
of  every  other.  The  whole  is  more  than  the  sum 
of  its  parts,  and  the  internal  relationships  are  so 
subtle  that  they  cannot  be  adequately  expressed 
in  terms  of  action  and  reaction  from  without.  The 
secret  of  this  organic  life  is  the  nervous  system 
which  binds  each  part  to  every  other ;  makes  the 
whole  responsive  to  the  needs  of  every  part,  and 
every  part  an  instrument  for  the  furtherance  of 
the  interests  of  the  whole.  The  whole  gives  to 
the  parts  whatever  meaning  and  significance  they 
have ;  and  the  parts  in  turn  give  to  the  whole 
whatever  expression  and  realization  it  attains. 
Not  in  timid  self-repression  ;  not  in  reckless  self- 
indulgence  ;  not  in  nursing  an  abstract  virtuous- 
ness,  nor  in  hugging  an  illusive  aggregate  of 
pleasures,  will  man  find  the  unity  he  seeks.  Moral 
virtue  is  neither  a  pale  abstraction  from  all  that 
is  attractive,  nor  a  stupid  aggregate  of  undifferen- 
tiated delights. 

Every  appetite  and  passion  of  our  nature  is,  in 
its    rightful    exercise    and    normal    function,    holy, 


248  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

humanizing,  God-ordained.  These  natural  impulses 
of  ours,  which,  perverted,  lead  to  such  swift,  sure, 
and  terrible  destruction,  are  yet  the  only  avenues 
through  which  we  can  come  into  fullest  appropria- 
tion of  the  bounties  of  nature,  the  beauties  of  art, 
the  sweet  delights  of  family  and  home,  and  the 
larger  life  of  society  and  state.  Pleasurable  though 
their  exercise  may  be,  yet  their  normal  end  is  not 
the  pleasurable  sensations  which  always  accom- 
pany the  exercise  of  function  ;  but  the  wide,  rich, 
blooming  fields  of  nature  and  humanity  into  which 
they  lead  us,  and  of  which  they  make  us  conscious 
and  cooperating  members. 

The  unity  of  life  which  comes  from  organizing 
all  its  throbbing  impulses  and  bounding  passions, 
its  rapturous  pleasures  and  exquisite  pains,  its 
glorious  delights  and  heroic  sacrifices,  its  homely 
joys  and  its  humble  duties  into  the  expression  of 
an  ever-expanding  will,  an  ever-widening  inter- 
est, an  ever-deepening  love  toward  all  the  good 
this  glorious  world  contains  ; — this  is  the  unity 
at  which  the  moral  life  must  aim. 

The  solution  of  the  social  problem  by  organiza- 
tion does  not  offer  so  obvious  and  speedy  remedies 
for  particular  social  ills  as  the  methods  previously 
considered.  Society  must  enlarge  rather  than 
restrict   the   freedom   of   its    individual    members. 


SOCIOLOGICAL  249 

And  individuals  in  turn  must  be  bound  more 
closely  rather  than  more  loosely  to  the  society  to 
which  they  properly  belong.  Society  must  leave 
its  members  free  in  order  to  get  from  them  the 
most  effective  service  ;  and  individuals  must  serve 
society  loyally  in  order  to  realize  their  own  best 
individual  life.  Reform  from  the  side  of  the  state 
must  consist  chiefly  in  preventing  one  class  from 
taking  unfair  advantage  of  the  necessities  of  an- 
other class.  And  reform  from  the  side  of  the 
individual  must  consist  chiefly  in  developing  the 
disposition  in  each  to  consider  the  interests  of 
others  and  of  all.  Not  the  forcing  upon  individ- 
uals of  a  better  social  order ;  not  the  rescue  of 
individuals  from  the  evils  of  the  existing  order, 
but  the  adaptation  of  society  to  the  actual  needs 
of  individuals,  and  the  adjustment  of  individuals 
to  the  actual  requirements  of  society,  and  thus  the 
gradual  improvement  of  each  element  through  the 
improvement  of  the  others;  —  this  is  the  organic 
unity  of  society,  toward  which  all  practical  social 
reform  must  tend.  As  Mr.  Kidd  has  expressed  it, 
"  The  avowed  aim  of  socialism  is  to  suspend  that 
personal  rivalry  and  competition  of  life  which  not 
only  is  now,  but  has  been  from  the  beginning  of 
life,  the  fundamental  impetus  behind  all  progress. 
The  inherent  tendency   of   the  process   of   social 


250  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

development  now  taking  place  amongst  us  is  to 
raise  this  rivalry  to  the  very  highest  degree  of 
efficiency  as  a  condition  of  progress,  by  bringing 
all  the  people  into  it  on  a  footing  of  equality,  and 
by  allowing  the  freest  possible  play  of  forces  within 
the  community,  and  the  widest  possible  opportuni- 
ties for  the  development  of  every  individual's  fac- 
ulties and  personality."  Wise  social  organization 
is  not  the  suppression  of  individuality.  It  is  the 
condition  of  the  most  complete  individualization, 
and  the  richest  and  fullest  development  of  person- 
ality. 

Organic  unity  in  the  religious  life  neither  with- 
draws religious  spirits  from  active  contact  with 
the  world,  nor  yet  does  it  impose  upon  the  church 
as  such  a  multitude  of  special  duties  and  func- 
tions. It  bids  the  average  Christian  live  in  the 
world  in  the  ordinary  relations  of  father,  husband, 
citizen,  workman,  neighbour,  and  friend  ;  and  at 
the  same  time  bids  him  make  these  concrete 
human  relationships  the  expression  of  a  divine 
righteousness  and  a  Christlike  love.  It  makes  the 
Christian  differ  from  other  men,  not  in  the  kind 
of  things  he  does,  nor  in  the  amount  of  work  he 
undertakes,  but  rather  in  the  different  way  in 
which  he  does  the  same  things  which  other  men 
are  doing,  and  in  the  different  spirit  in  which  he 


SOCIOLOGICAL  25 1 

fulfils  the  simple  relationships  which  are  common 
to  us  all.  The  highest  type  of  Christian  is  not 
the  man  who  withdraws  from  the  world  in  pious 
meditation  ;  not  the  man  who  attacks  it  with  the 
reforming  zeal  of  a  John  the  Baptist,  though  this 
is  great ;  indeed  the  greatest  of  the  natural  vir- 
tues. Greater,  however,  than  any  spirit  that  is 
born  of  woman,  or  merely  natural,  is  the  spirit 
which  comes  eating  and  drinking ;  makes  friends 
with  publicans  and  sinners ;  shares  the  mingled 
good  and  evil  of  man's  common  lot,  and  lives 
and  works  patiently  and  quietly  to  make  these 
common  human  relationships  a  glory  to  God  and 
a  blessing  to  mankind.  It  is  of  these  quiet, 
patient,  modest,  self-forgetful  souls,  who  do  their 
simple  duty  in  plain,  humble,  homely  ways,  that 
the  real  solid  substance  of  God's  kingdom  is  com- 
posed. Unnumbered  because,  thank  God,  they 
are  so  many ;  unnoticed  because  their  piety  is  so 
natural,  their  life  so  normal,  their  divineness  so 
human  ;  these,  whose  lips  are  seldom  heard  to 
say,  "  Lord,  Lord,"  and  whose  left  hands  know 
not  the  doings  of  the  right,  —  these  simple,  child- 
like hearts  are  the  salt  of  the  earth  and  the  light 
of  the  world,  the  redeemers  of  man  and  the  chil- 
dren of  God. 

It  is  not  by  getting  away  from  the  world,  nor 


252  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

by  plunging  madly  into  it,  that  we  shall  find  the 
unity  of  life  we  seek.  It  is  by  binding  together 
thought  and  life  ;  by  making  the  humblest  details 
of  daily  duty  express  the  loftiest  aspects  of  our 
faith  ;  it  is  by  bringing  the  universal  down  to 
the  particular,  and  lifting  the  definite  up  into 
the  infinite,  that  we  shall  fulfil  the  social  function 
of  religion.  Religion  should  do  for  the  social 
organism  what  the  nerves  do  for  the  body.  It  is 
the  function  of  the  nerves  to  bind  all  the  parts  of 
the  body  together,  and  so  to  place  the  resources 
of  the  whole  at  the  disposal  of  every  part.  Attack 
the  lion  anywhere,  and  instantly  his  powerful  paw 
is  upon  you  and  his  cruel  teeth  are  in  your  flesh. 
That  is  made  possible  by  the  nerve  which  binds 
the  part  you  rashly  ventured  to  attack  to  the 
brain,  which  instantly  transmits  along  another 
nerve  the  order  that  outraged  dignity  shall  be 
avenged.  In  like  manner  it  is  the  function  of 
religion  to  bring  to  bear  upon  any  given  point  in 
the  social  organism  the  thought  and  will  of  God. 

The  disciples  once  came  back  to  Jesus  rejoic- 
ing over  the  great  things  that  they  had  done, 
exclaiming,  "Lord,  even  the  devils  are  subject 
unto  us."  Jesus  assured  them  of  continued 
power ;  yet,  with  that  transcendent  insight  which 
made  each   incident   in   his    career   a   fresh    reve- 


SOCIOLOGICAL 


253 


lation  of  divine  wisdom  and  truth,  he  added, 
"Notwithstanding,  in  this  rejoice  not,  that  the 
spirits  are  subject  unto  you,  but  rather  rejoice 
because  your  names  are  written  in  heaven." 
Not  what  they  had  wrought  by  their  individ- 
ual efforts,  but  what  they  were  by  virtue  of  their 
spiritual  purpose  and  relationship  —  this  was  to 
be  the  deep,  abiding  secret  of  their  joy. 

The  kingdom  of  God  comes  not  chiefly  with 
observation,  nor  are  its  most  faithful  members 
heralded  in  the  press  and  on  the  platform 
with  "  Lo,  here,"  and  "  Lo,  there."  It  is  not 
in  the  range  of  our  opportunity,  nor  in  the 
amount  of  our  performance,  nor  in  the  fame 
of  our  attainments,  but  by  the  completeness 
with  which  we  organize  the  simple  relations  of 
our  every-day  life  into  an  expression  of  all  the 
truth  and  beauty  and  goodness  we  have  learned 
to  love,  that  we  gain  the  true  unity  of  life,  ful- 
fil the  social  function  of  the  Christian,  and  main- 
tain our  membership  in  the  kingdom  of  God. 

The  kingdom  of  God  lies  not  in  some  remote 
sphere  which  can  be  reached  only  in  another 
state  of  existence  ;  and  can  be  anticipated  only 
by  the  abstract  methods  of  asceticism,  Utopian 
visions,  and  other-worldliness.  No  more  does 
it   consist  of  a   blind   and    meaningless  aggregate 


254  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

of  pleasurable  or  charitable  or  ecclesiastical  ac- 
tivities. The  kingdom  of  God  is  here  and  now. 
It  is  made  of  just  such  stuff  as  human  life  is 
made  of.  It  is  the  coordination  and  correlation 
of  the  appetites,  impulses,  passions,  pursuits,  in- 
terests, affections,  and  aspirations  of  man.  Happy 
homes,  cheerful  school-rooms,  faithful  work,  hon- 
est trade,  wholesome  food,  healthful  dwellings, 
beautiful  parks,  beneficent  government,  public- 
spirited  citizenship,  official  integrity,  good  books, 
public  libraries,  beautiful  pictures,  refined  social 
intercourse,  vigorous  out-door  life,  abundant  rec- 
reation,—  these  are  some  of  the  positive  ele- 
ments that  are  essential  to  the  realization  of  the 
kingdom  of  God.  And  on  the  negative  side, 
as  defences  against  the  forces  which  are  always 
tending  to  postpone  and  defeat  the  coming  of 
this  kingdom,  there  must  be  the  numerous  chari- 
ties and  reforms,  the  hospitals  and  asylums  and 
prisons,  the  police  and  the  courts  and  the  armies, 
which  are  necessary  to  care  for  the  unfortunate 
and  the  sick ;  to  restrain  the  avarice  and  lust 
and  lawlessness  of  those  who  in  character  and 
conduct  refuse  to  enter  the  kingdom  and  obey 
its  law  of  love. 

All  those  who  sincerely    strive   to  subordinate 
their  purely  personal  interests  and  private  pleas- 


SOCIOLOGICAL  255 

ures  to  the  larger  interests  and  nobler  joys  which 
come  of  conscious  participation  in  the  well-being 
of  the  social  whole,  are  members  of  the  king- 
dom. The  kingdom  of  God  and  the  well-being 
of  man  are  opposite  sides  of  one  and  the  self- 
same thing.  And  he  who  participates  in  the 
promotion  of  human  well-being  therein  partakes 
of  the  blessedness  of  the  kingdom  of  God. 

So  simple,  so  inevitable,  so  automatic,  is  the 
process  of  admission  or  exclusion.  The  gates 
of  the  kingdom  are  wide  open  day  and  night, 
that  all  who  love  and  serve  their  fellow-men  may 
enter.  And  yet  the  walls  of  service,  the  steeps 
of  sacrifice,  are  so  high  on  every  side  that  no 
thief  or  robber,  intent  on  securing  its  benefits 
without  sharing  its  generous  and  sacrificial  spirit, 
can  climb  up  and  enter  in  by  any  other  way. 

Such  is  the  kingdom  of  God  as  we  know  it  here 
and  now.  What  of  the  future  ?  There  is  no  way 
of  judging  the  future  save  by  the  past  and  the 
present.  It  is  idle  to  presume  to  determine  the 
issues  of  eternity  by  our  interpretation  of  this 
or  that  figurative  passage  even  of  Sacred  Scrip- 
ture. Some  things  are  sure.  Righteousness  and 
love  will  be  noble  and  blessed  always  and  every- 
where ;  and  the  clearer  the  light  in  which  they 
are    revealed    the    greater    will    be    their    glory. 


256  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

Sin  and  selfishness  will  be  mean  and  miserable 
always  and  everywhere ;  and  the  more  transpar- 
ent the  mode  of  existence  and  the  more  mature 
the  development  of  these  traits,  the  more  odious 
and  wretched  they  will  become.  To  be  seen  as 
he  is,  to  be  known  in  his  real  nature,  to  have 
all  disguises  stripped  from  his  naked  spirit ;  to 
have  each  feature  of  his  selfishness  and  sin 
brought  out  in  clear  relief  against  the  pure 
white  light  of  love,  so  that  no  associate  could 
be  found  who  should  not  see  and  know  him  as 
he  is;  —  this  would  be  the  severest  penalty  the 
sinner  could  receive.  And  this  would  be  the  only 
possible  fate  of  the  persistent  sinner  in  a  spirit- 
world  where  souls  should  see  face  to  face,  and 
know  as  they  are  known. 

Would  sinners  in  such  conditions  persist  in 
sin,  or  would  they  continue  in  existence  if  they 
did  ?  To  this  question  we  must  answer  squarely 
that  we  do  not  know.  Our  intensest  name  for 
shame  is  mortification.  Disguise  and  hypocrisy 
and  concealment  is  the  only  resource  which 
makes  the  life  of  the  mean  and  selfish  man 
endurable  in  this  world.  With  this  withdrawn, 
the  sinner  would  not  wish  to  continue  in  sin. 
And  we  can  hardly  conceive  that  the  Father  of 
our    spirits    would    force    on    an    unwilling    soul 


SOCIOLOGICAL  257 

an  existence  alike  abhorrent  to  God  and  miser- 
able for  the  man  himself.  The  Omnipotent 
does  not  stand  in  need  of  such  artificial,  cruel, 
and  sensational  devices  to  maintain  the  dignity 
of  his  law  and  the  majesty  of  his  government. 

Will  the  righteous  survive  ?  Is  immortality 
assured  to  the  just  ?  A  full  discussion  of  the 
great  question  of  immortality  does  not  fall  within 
the  limits  of  the  purpose  of  this  book.  Still  this 
social  point  of  view  throws  light  on  some  aspects 
of  the  problem.  Strict  proof  is  impossible.  There 
are,  however,  the  strongest  grounds  for  confidence ; 
the  largest  reasons  for  hope. 

The  man  who  has  entered  the  kingdom  and 
is  living  a  life  of  unselfishness  and  love  is  obey- 
ing a  law  which  is  as  eternal  and  universal 
in  the  spiritual  sphere  as  is  gravitation  in  the 
material  sphere.  Out  of  just  such  spirits  as  his, 
living  on  the  same  principle  on  which  he  is  liv- 
ing, the  kingdom  of  God  must  always  and  every- 
where be  composed.  The  essential  life  which 
such  a  man  is  living  must  continue  as  long  as 
the  kingdom  of  God  endures.  It  must  exist 
wherever  God  holds  sway.  The  life  he  is  living, 
the  spirit  and  aim  and  purpose  of  it,  its  love 
and  its  devotion,  cannot  die.  Without  such  sons 
to  do  his  will,  God  would  cease  to  be  the  Father. 


258  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

Without  such  spirits  to  constitute  his  kingdom, 
the  King*  would  occupy  an  empty  throne. 

If,  then,  God's  kingdom  shall  endure,  either 
his  loyal  subjects  and  obedient  sons  who  are  in 
existence  here  and  now,  must  be  preserved  in 
existence,  or  else  beings  of  the  same  spiritual 
purpose  and  life  must  be  created  or  developed 
under  other  conditions  to  take  their  places.  An- 
nihilation of  those  who  have  wrought  out  their 
sonship  to  God  and  their  membership  in  his  king- 
dom through  the  hard  conflicts  of  earth  and  time, 
and  the  creation  of  others  to  take  their  places, 
certainly  does  not  seem  either  an  economical,  or 
a  just,  or  a  kind  mode  of  procedure.  It  is  incon- 
sistent with  the  fatherhood  of  God.  It  robs  the 
life  of  man  of  its  deepest  and  widest  significance. 
It  is  not  what  wisdom,  beneficence,  and  love  would 
prompt  us  to  do  to  those  who  ever  so  feebly  and 
imperfectly  had  learned  to  love  us.  It  is  incon- 
sistent with  all  that  we  know  of  the  wisdom  and 
love  of  God ;  inconsistent  with  the  clear  insight 
and  confident  declaration  of  Christ  ;  inconsistent 
with  the  deepest  intuitions  and  hopes  of  the 
human  heart. 

Immortality  is  not  necessary  as  a  foundation  for 
religion.  There  have  been  and  are  to-day  pro- 
foundly religious  spirits  of  whose  faith  this  larger 


S(  BIOLOGICAL 


259 


hope  forms  no  certain  part.  Even  if  this  little 
life  be  all,  the  life  of  love  is  better  than  the  life  of 
selfishness  ;  the  life  of  service  is  nobler  than  the 
life  of  sensual  pleasure  ;  God  is  a  more  worthy 
object  even  for  our  short-lived  devotion,  than  appe- 
tite and  passion.  Yet  while  immortality  is  not  a 
demonstrable  fact  of  science  which  we  can  hold  up 
in  advance  as  an  inducement  for  beginning  the 
religious  life,  it  is  a  confident  assurance  which 
grows  brighter  and  brighter  with  each  new  ex- 
perience of  the  blessedness  of  love  and  each  fresh 
revelation  of  the  goodness  of  God. 

The  light  of  the  knowledge  of  the  glory  of 
God  in  the  face  of  Jesus  Christ  has  come  into 
the  world ;  and  in  proportion  to  our  humility 
and  unselfishness  has  shined  in  our  hearts. 
Darkness  and  clouds  are  round  about  many  of 
the  problems  connected  with  the  nature  of  God 
and  the  destiny  of  man.  Christ  has  brought  life 
and  immortality  to  light ;  and  the  Spirit  of 
Christ  dwelling  in  our  hearts  gives  us  an  ever- 
growing assurance  that  if  we  are  "stedfast, 
unmovable,  always  abounding  in  the  work  of  the 
Lord,  our  labour  is  not  vain  in  the  Lord."  Out 
of  this  deep  experience  of  the  present  love  of 
Christ ;  out  of  the  strong  courage  with  which 
the  Spirit  helps  us  to  give  our  lives  unsparingly  in 


260  SOCIAL  THEOLOGY 

social  service,  there  is  born  the  lively  hope  and 
the  serene  confidence  that  can  come  to  us  in  no 
easier  way  and  on  no  cheaper  terms;  —  the  prac- 
tical certainty  that  "  he  that  doeth  the  will  of  God 
abideth  forever." 


SOCIAL  EVOLUTION. 

By  BENJAMIN    KIDD. 

NEW     EDITION.    REVISED,    WITH    A     NEW    PREFACE. 
i2mo,  cloth,  $1.50.    Also  cheap  edition  in  paper  covers,  25  cents. 


"  The  name  of  Mr.  Benjamin  Kidd,  author  of  a  very  striking  work  on  '  Social 
Evolution,'  is,  so  far  as  we  know,  new  to  the  literary  world;  but  it  is  not  often 
that  a  new  and  unknown  writer  makes  his  first  appearance  with  a  work  so  novel 
in  conception,  so  fertile  in  suggestion,  and  on  the  whole  so  powerful  in  exposition 
as  '  Social  Evolution  '  appears  to  us  to  be,  ...  a  book  which  no  serious  thinker 
should  neglect,  and  no  reader  can  study  without  recognizing  it  as  the  work  of  a 
singularly  penetrating  and  original  mind." —  The  Times  (London). 

"  It  is  a  study  of  the  whole  development  of  humanity  in  a  new  light,  and  it  is 
sustained  and  strong  and  fresh  throughout.  ...  It  is  a  profound  work  which 
invites  the  attention  of  our  ablest  minds,  and  which  will  reward  those  who  give  it 
their  careful  and  best  thought.  It  marks  out  new  lines  of  study,  and  is  written  in 
that  calm  and  resolute  tone  which  secures  the  confidence  of  the  reader.  It  is 
undoubtedly  the  ablest  book  on  social  development  that  has  been  published  for  a 
long  time."  —  Boston  Herald. 

"  Those  who  wish  to  follow  the  Bishop  of  Durham's  advice  to  his  clergy  — '  to 
think  over  the  questions  of  socialism,  to  discuss  them  with  one  another  reverently 
and  patiently,  but  not  to  improvise  hasty  judgments  '  —  will  find  a  most  admira- 
ble introduction  in  Mr.  Kidd's  book  on  social  evolution.  It  is  this  because  it  not 
merely  contains  a  comprehensive  view  of  the  very  wide  field  of  human  progress, 
but  is  packed  with  suggestive  thoughts  for  interpreting  it  aright.  .  .  .  We  hope 
that  the  same  clear  and  well-balanced  judgment  that  has  given  us  this  helpful 
essay  will  not  stay  here,  but  give  us  further  guidance  as  to  the  principles  which 
ought  to  govern  right  thinking  on  this,  the  question  of  the  day.  We  heartily 
commend  this  really  valuable  study  to  every  student  of  the  perplexing  problems 
of  socialism." —  The  Churchman. 


MACMILLAN    &    CO., 

66   FIFTH    AVENUE,    NEW    YORK. 

5 


Date  Due 

T~ 

<f) 

